Gymnastics stays undefeated in MAC play, but is upset at home this weekend
The Central Michigan gymnastics team (7-1, 3-0) split over the weekend but won its Mid-American Conference match over Eastern Michigan.
On Friday, CMU competed in a tri-meet at EMU along with Texas Woman’s University.
The Chippewas were able to hold off EMU 193.325 to 192.725. Texas Woman’s University placed third with a score of 190.550.
The same Texas Woman’s University pulled off an upset on Sunday in Mount Pleasant.
After performing well on the vault, the bars proved to be a complete disaster for the Chippewas.
Freshman Rebecca Druien landed awkwardly and was unable to continue the rest of the meet. Senior Kristen Teubner also struggled maintaining momentum on bars, which led to the team’s final score being 46.175.
Sophomore Brittany Petzold scored a 39.300 all-around score. A score of 39 or higher has eluded CMU this season until this point.
“I was really excited on how I did,” Petzold said. “I felt like I didn’t let the pressure get to me. There was a lot of pressure on me, because we had a few mistakes on the past events.”
If there was any blame to be passed around, head coach Jerry Reighard is asking to take it.
“I take full responsibility of what happened today,” Reighard said. “I had totally changed my approach to this meet. I wasn’t Jerry Reighard, I was low key.”
CMU did some experimenting this meet to find out who is comfortable in which events. The results were not pleasing.
“We made some line-up changes, put people in different positions to see where they will compete best,” Reighard said. “That did not seem to work in our benefit. We are having a real difficult time putting 24 positive things together in a meet.”
While the loss stings CMU, it doesn’t hurt them in the MAC standings, in which they are still undefeated.
Reighard believes Druien’s injury might be a torn ligament in her elbow.
The injury forced freshman Kylie Fagan to perform on the floor. The timing gave Reighard and Fagan 10 minutes to make up a routine.
Fagan ended up scoring a 9.650, a great score for just making the routine up.
“Bless her heart, she came to me and said if you need someone to go on floor I’m here,” Reighard said. “We made the tumbling up in 10 minutes.”
The team has not performed up to the standards of scoring 196s during the meets.
Reighard was surprised that a day where the team struggled hasn’t happened earlier.
“To be honest, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before this,” Reighard said. “We have been competing very well, but perhaps we were due.”
Win at EMU
Druien continued her strong season with the top all-around score of 38.775, scoring a 9.725 in three out of four events.
Petzold notched the top score of the meet with a 9.850 on bars.
The floor exercise proved to be the Chippewas toughest event. The team had two falls counted against them and scored a season low 47.800.
The victory over EMU marked the 25th consecutive win for the Chippewas over the MAC.
