No. 22 Gymnastics faces William and Mary in third annual Royal Rumble and Tumble
Last week, gymnastics was the unranked underdog taking on a ranked opponent, but against William and Mary, the roles will reverse with the Chippewas rising to a No. 22 national ranking.
A score of 194.8 was enough for CMU to defeat No. 24 Maryland last weekend, and could be enough to beat a William and Mary team that only managed to score 190.725 in their last competition.
“William and Mary is a respectable team. I don’t see them as a 195, but they’ve only done one meet,” said head coach Jerry Reighard. “You can’t look at that. Was it a meet that they didn’t do their best in or was that their best? You don’t know because there’s not enough yearly history yet.”
Regardless of their opponent's score, Reighard expects much more out of his squad in Friday's meet.
“I really feel like our team is talented enough to go 196, which is a 9.8 average,” Reighard said. “We just have been leaving things on the table.”
Seniors Brittany Petzold and Emily Heinz spoke in the same vein, saying their goal was to hit 9.8 individually so the team could reach 196, a score only 10 teams in the country have achieved so far this year.
Heinz was able to score more than a 9.8 in two of her three events Friday, enough to earn her the Mid-American Conference Gymnast of the Week honor.
“Our goal this weekend is 196,” Heinz said. “That’s been our goal the whole season, but I think it’s time for us to let loose and I think once we do that, we’ll be unstoppable.”
Heinz was awarded MAC Specialist of the Week in 2011, which is awarded to gymnasts who compete in two or fewer events. This is her first MAC Gymnast of the Week award.
“It’s a great award for her, she deserves it,” Petzold said. “She works so hard in the gym, the scores prove it.”
Getting prepped for distractions
An added element for Friday’s meet is the wrestling match that will be going on in the same gym at the same time in the third annual Royal Rumble and Tumble event.
“It creates a circus atmosphere, because when we get into quadrangular meets where there’s four events going on at a time or we go to a championship meet at the end of the year, it is a circus,” Reighard said. “There’s teams moving, there’s four events all going on at the same time and it’s something that we have to learn to contend with, and our freshmen have never experienced it.”
The biggest distraction will likely be on the balance beam, which will be close to where wrestling will be going on. Reighard said he’s done a few things in an effort to prepare his team for the distraction.
“I whistle, I clap my hands, I run past the beam, do whatever I can do to create that (atmosphere),” Reighard said. “But it’s still our practice area. It’s not quite the same."
Besides the hostile atmosphere, Reighard said the event is great for both sports because it exposes people to a sport they might not be interested in.
“There’s going to be some high school men and athletes that come faithfully that have never been exposed to gymnastics and there’s going to be some mom’s and little girls that come faithfully to gymnastics that don’t know what wrestling’s all about,” Reighard said. “They’re going to get an opportunity to cross over and see it. I think we both get more fans as a result of this, both wrestling and gymnastics.”
