No. 22 Gymnastics disappointed with performance but earns victory
No. 22 gymnastics defeated William and Mary in Friday’s Royal Rumble and Tumble 193.950-188.700 at McGuirk arena.
Central Michigan recorded a win, although the score was the lowest for the team this season.
“193.95 breaks my heart to be honest with you,” said head coach Jerry Reighard. “If it was a 194 even, it just mentally sounds a whole lot better.”
The Chippewas started off the meet on a sour note, scoring a 48.425 on vault and a 48.150 on uneven bars. Even though they were ahead of William and Mary by more than two points at the halfway point, they were well below what they were expecting.
“Our goal at every meet is always to win, but we didn’t accomplish our biggest goal of a 196, which has been our goal since the beginning of the season,” said senior Emily Heinz. “We had a lot of uncharacteristic falls and mistakes that we let get the best of us, until floor.”
While wrestling was clinching a nail-biting 19-15 victory over No. 25 Ohio in one corner of the gym, gymnastics was dominating floor on the other side of the gym. All six event participators scored a 9.75 or above.
“We were scored pretty low (on vault) and we let that get to us because we knew we were off target already,” Heinz said. “Then we let that carry over to bars and then we tried to bring it back at beam and then floor took care of it. We needed to do that a lot earlier.”
Junior Hallie Moraw was the last of the Chippewas to compete on floor and scored a 9.9, the highest number of the night.
“I was very happy with it; I finally got a 9.9,” Moraw said. “The goal for the year’s to get a 10.”
After Friday’s meet, CMU’s average score fell to 194.4, which was good enough for 25th in the nation last weekend. While floor helped pick up the score, it still might not be enough to keep the Chippewas ranked in the top-25 in this week’s national rankings.
“I just put all six floor workers up in front (after the meet),” Reighard said. “I said, when you go out tonight, the team each owes them a Diet Coke, because they put a smile on my face at the end of the meet. Otherwise it would have been a very, very ugly team meeting.”
One of the challenges for the Chippewas was overcoming the loss of senior all-around competitor Brittany Petzold, who injured her ankle this week in practice.
As of Thursday, Petzold wasn’t going to compete, but right before the match she was able to convince Reighard to let her compete in bars, in which she ended up taking the top score with a 9.825.
“She immediately came up to me on the floor before I even had my jacket off and she said, I’m ready, I’m ready,” Reighard said. “I said, you’re ready for what?”
Petzold competed in all four events last week against Maryland, scoring 9.725 or higher in all four events.
“She really made a significant impact on bars,” Reighard said. “Without her, we would have been even lower than we were.”
She was hoping to compete in vault but decided her ankle couldn’t handle after a practice run, Reighard said.
“That tells you the kind of competitor she really is – she wants to be out there,” Reighard said. “Quite honestly, she’s going to add at least two tenths (of a point) per event.”
Reighard said it’s too soon to tell which events Petzold will be able to compete in at next Sunday’s meet against Ball State, but bars and vault will be the most likely. The floor routine would be the most difficult to achieve on an injured ankle.
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