Gymnastics goes to Northern Illinois to begin road stretch
The Central Michigan gymnastics team will be traveling for the next three weeks and its first stop is 2 p.m. Sunday at Northern Illinois.
The team will be sleeping in a hotel for the first time this season, something head coach Jerry Reighard said normally comes earlier in the season.
“We always struggle when we go to Kent State because of the rivalry,” Reighard said. “But I think Northern Illinois is a concern for us because it is such a long trip, it just adds to the fatigue of our team. This is very late in the season for us to be having our first overnight trip.”
Freshman Halle Moraw will continue to help the Chippewas by competing as an all-arounder against the Huskies. Moraw scored an 8.75 on the floor in her last event. The high score propelled the Chippewas to score over a 49 on the event, a season high.
“Halle was looked at, at the beginning of the year as a very competitive athlete on all four events,” Reighard said. “She came down with mono and that set her back early in the season, but we think she has done a great job for us and is really competitive as a Division I athlete.”
With so many injuries to the team this season, it has forced new faces into roles.
Up to this point in the season, Reighard has pegged freshman Taylor Noonan as the most improved gymnast on the team.
“Noonan has showed us she has a great competitive spirit,” Reighard said. “We looked at Taylor as a balance beam expert, which she is. She is leading the conference on balance beam. She has done a great job on bars, and floor, she really filled a slot that we needed to be filled.”
If the Chippewas want to continue their dominance of the Mid-American Conference they will need senior Kristin Teubner to continue her MAC gymnast of the year performances.
Reighard said he believes Teubner can continue to perform at her high level now that her schedule is less cluttered.
“She had some troubles early in the year with some grad school application trips,” Reighard said. “She had a ton of interviews that she had to do, which had a bigger toll than anyone expected. She was actually flying around the country to grad schools and coming back in the morning to compete later in a meet.”
