Central Michigan Life

Issue date: 1/14/08 Section: Sports

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It was not a good opening weekend for the gymnastics team.

CMU lost at Illinois State on Sunday 191.550-186.125, dropping its record to 0-2.

The Chippewas hoped to come out of the weekend with at least one win. But after struggling in the season-opener against Oklahoma, they lost again, this time to Illinois State. CMU beat the Redbirds by more than 10 points last season in the season-opening meet in Rose Arena.

CMU's scores of 45.075 on the balance beam and 45.575 on the floor exercise took the Chippewas out of the meet. Senior Danielle Espinoza's 9.575 score on the floor exercise was the team's highest on the event.

The Chippewas have been hurt from injuries to two of the team's most versatile competitors. Sophomore Jessica Suder, who still is recovering from a broken little finger typically competes in four events, and freshman Samantha Ursch was expecting to compete in three before she was lost for the season with torn anterior cruciate ligament.

"This is the lineup we got, so these girls have to regroup and figure out where they want to go," said coach Jerry Reighard after Friday's loss to Oklahoma. "I know where the coaches want to go."

Until the gymnasts get healthy, Reighard said CMU is going to have to find a way to win with what it has rather than with what it hoped it would.

"You got to match up the mature people against their mature people and right now we're lacking," Reighard said. "We have to get healthy."

Reighard also said he didn't expect Central to perform the way it did.

"Sometimes you're pleasantly surprised - this was a surprise, but it wasn't pleasant," Reighard said. "The things we did wrong we were successful at everyday (in practice)."

The Chippewas got a strong performance from sophomore Katie Simon, who picked up where she left off last season when she was the Mid-American Conference Freshman of the Year.

Simon's 38.7 all-around score was only a half-point lower than Oklahoma senior Kiara Redmond-Sturms' 38.75. Redmond-Sturms was a first team All-American in the all-around last season.

While Simon was pleased with her performance, she acknowledged that it is the team's performance that's most important.

"I felt prepared, but there are still a lot of things I need to work on. I need to help the team more," Simon said. "We can only move up, we can only improve. We need to keep working hard and build on (Friday) instead of thinking of it as a disappointment."

The Chippewas also got a strong performance from senior Jenna D'Alie, who competed in her first meet at CMU. D'Alie scored a 9.325 on the vault and a 9.725 on the uneven bars.

"Katie had a nice little routine. I was really impressed with Jenna," Reighard said. "I was real pleased with Jenna, (Andrea) de la Garza's comeback on the beam; there are real positives."

When informed of Reighard's comment, D'Alie smiled.

"It means a lot because he's somebody I really, really respect because he's been in this business a long time," D'Alie said. "If he says that about me I'm going to take it and run with it."


sports@cm-life.com

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