Gymnastics team competes against No. 23 Arizona State


The CMU gymnastics team looks to build upon last week's season-best showing when it travels to No. 23 Arizona State Friday in Tempe, Ariz.

Following a six-hour trip to Dekalb, Ill., last weekend, the team will travel another four hours by plane in search of its 10th win.

However, Senior Katie Simon said she is looking forward to the challenge a high caliber Pacific 10 team provides.

“It is going to be good competition," she said. "We're looking forward to that challenge because it’s not really available to us in the MAC."

Simon paced the squad last weekend winning the all-around with a score of 39.35, for her fourth all-around win of the season.

Previously, CMU beat previous-No. 21 Michigan State and lost to No. 19 Denver by .175.

Coach Jerry Reighard said he knows the approach in this meet will be vastly different from that in some of the league meets the team has won recently.

“This meet will be a mental battle — this is dead even," he said. "It will come to which team can put up the highest fifth counting score."

Teubner excells

Teubner claimed victory in two of the four events and finished with a season-high in the floor exercise (9.9). She also claimed victory on the vault, posting a 9.875 to help lead the team in a four-event sweep of the meet.

Teubner said she was pleased with obtaining a 9.9, something she had set for herself during the previous week's practice.

“I finally just put a whole routine together," she said. "It was nice that it finally showed In the meet."

With only three days of practice because of the travel, the team will look to refine some of the finer points of their rotations in order to make up for the lost practice time.

“We're trying to do all the preparation we do in five days in three," Reighard said.

Arizona State

The Sun Devils come into Fridays losing four of their last five meets, but all to ranked opponents, three of which in the top 10.

ASU is led by Mary Atkinson, who has a 9.9 season-high on the vault and floor exercise to go with a 9.95 season-high on the uneven bars.

The Sun Devils bring a Qualifying score of 194.510, a mere .365 points higher than CMU.

“I am convinced we can beat them, so it’s only a matter of what our athletes think,” Reighard said.

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