2008 Woodie Awards
Gymnasts finish third for second straight season
Host Kent State wins, Eastern Michigan finishes second
By: Justin Berndt
Issue date: 3/31/08 Section: Sports
|
With a 2-4 conference record, CMU entered the Mid-American Conference championship meet as the fifth seed. Yet on Saturday, CMU counted no falls and scored 193.675 en route to a third place finish.
Host Kent State won the championship with a score of 195.675, followed by defending champion Eastern Michigan in second place with a 193.8.
"It's just a drastic improvement in the competitive attitude that we displayed both last weekend, but especially this weekend at the championships," Reighard said. "The focus was all business and I think that the stuff we do in our preparation certainly helped. But more importantly, I think it really came down to the intent of each athlete."
Freshman Andrea de la Garza led the Chippewas as she had the highest total score on the four events. She became the first CMU freshman to win the conference all-around title since 2002.
De la Garza was named MAC Freshman of the Year on Friday.
"That was definitely one of my goals in the beginning of the season and I was just really happy that I could accomplish that," de la Garza said. "(Winning the all-around) is huge because not many freshmen can accomplish that and I'm just really excited that I could be the one to do it."
De la Garza scored a team best 9.85 on the vault and tied sophomore Katie Simon for team-best on the uneven bars with a 9.725. She also finished second to senior Danielle Espinoza for the team high floor routine with a score of 9.75.
Junior Jessica Neel finished seventh in the all-around with a 38.375 and Katie Simon finished ninth with a 38.325.
Be the first to comment on this story