Gymnastics looks to stay perfect at Illinois State
The Central Michigan gymnastics program looks to build upon its 4-0 record this weekend when it travels to Normal, Ill. to take on Illinois State at 3 p.m. Sunday.
CMU has been successful against the Redbirds the past four seasons, going 3-1. Head coach Jerry Reighard said the key in practice last week and for upcoming meets is to perfect small aspects of the events in order to increase point totals, something the team strives to improve all year.
“We have got to maintain and push even harder in practice for perfection and that means a lot of repetitive things,” Reighard said.
Of those areas the team wishes to improve upon is the balance beam, where they have traditionally struggled early on in seasons. But they currently they rank No. 21 nationally on the beam with a per-meet average of 48.450 points, putting them only .675 points behind No. 1 Stanford.
For Reighard, getting his team to be consistent on the beam throughout the year is something that will take a lot of focus by his athletes.
“For us, it’s a minute and a half straight (on the beam), and we’re still not where I would like us to be as far as being able to maintain that focus,” Reighard said.
For senior Cheryl Conlin, the past few weeks have been dedicated to tweaking the small parts of the beam routine in hopes of gaining high scores.
“We have been working on not just getting numbers, but perfecting parts (of the routine) and doing back-to-back routines on the beam,” Conlin said.
The Chippewas will also have to compensate on the bars because of season-ending injuries to junior Kari Dieffenderfer and sophomore Emily LaFontaine.
CMU will look to junior Kristin Teubner, who is coming off a solid performance last weekend against Ball State where she won three of four events, including an all-around victory.
Because of her efforts, she was awarded the Mid-American conference gymnast of the week award.
The team will also look to sophomore Britney Taylor, who paced the Chippewas last weekend on the vault with a 9.750 score. Taylor said the team is positioned well for only being a few meets in and is pleased with the high number scores across the board.
“This year we already have 9.7’s and 9.8’s,” she said, “so you can see where this is like the start of the national team and the start of nationals.”
The 2-0 Redbirds come into the meet with wins against Seattle-Pacific and Washington University.
