Michigan continues dominance over Illinois in annual gymnastics challenge
Central Michigan gymnastics won the Michigan-Illinois Challenge on Saturday for a second consecutive year and third time in the challenge's four-year existence.
CMU hosted the Michigan-Illinois Challenge for the first time in McGuirk Arena.
Illinois State and Illinois-Chicago represented Illinois, while CMU and Eastern Michigan represented their home state. The MIC started four years ago and has alternated states and host schools every year.
“It gets better each year,” said Jerry Reighard, CMU gymnastics head coach. “The other three teams were extremely impressed with our facility, the atmosphere and the crowd, and I think it held everybody.”
Although each team is scored individually, the team score of both teams representing the same state are combined to determine a winner. Eastern Michigan had their best score in school history with 194.8, helping the state of Michigan take home a very comfortable victory.
“The atmosphere is great, we all want the rivalry to continue and it will forever be there,” said junior Taylor Noonan. “We won it last year in Chicago and we had a high score there as well. It is a good meet for us and we all enjoy it a lot.”
The No. 23 Chippewas should find themselves with an even better national ranking after earning a 196.6 – the best score ever recorded in McGuirk Arena.
“I actually got everyone together after beam and told them look at all the people here to see you, this is what it's all about, this is all the fun,” Reighard said. “Nobody is going to outcheer us in our own gym.”
It’s no secret that CMU thrives on pressure and has taken the trophy for the state of Michigan three times. Michigan teams have defeated Illinois with a combined score of 391.4 to 384.45.
CMU scored two 9.9s in the floor rotation, both from two of the youngest competitors, sophomores Taylor Bolender and Preslee Harrald.
The MIC lived up to its hype, bringing almost 700 fans to McGuirk Arena to cheer on the nationally-ranked team.
“We say it all the time, a gymnast is an entertainer,” Reighard said. “If you can’t entertain your spectators, they aren’t going to come back, and I think we did a really good job of entertaining today.”
The Chippewas and Eagles won by almost seven points – their largest margin of victory since the quad meet was formed, and nearly four times higher than last year's challenge.
