No. 23 gymnastics finishes first in Michigan-Illinois Challenge, earns highest score since ’05.
Even the crowd was on-board with gymnastics head coach Jerry Reighard’s goal of scoring a 196. A fan at McGuirk Arena on Saturday boasted a sign saying “196 or bust,” and Central Michigan didn’t disappoint.
CMU and Eastern Michigan took the top two spots in the Michigan-Illinois Challenge, with a 196.6 and 194.8 respectively, claiming the victory for Michigan.
CMU’s score was the fourth-highest in program history and the second-highest during the regular season.
“That’s what CMU gymnastics is all about,” Reighard said. “We have been striving for that for a couple years now. We’ve toyed with it, but never this early in the season. I really liked the killer instinct, and I know that’s kind of a strange word for gymnastics, but we were very much in the zone.”
While CMU was in control for the whole meet, especially over Illinois State and UIC, there were a few opportunities that could have stalled the team.
In each event, six gymnasts compete, but only the best five scores count. Essentially, each team gets a mulligan for each event. With early falls on the uneven bars and balance beam, the remaining competitors had no room for error.
“We always practice to do your own job,” said sophomore Preslee Harrald. “It’s your routine, no matter what the person before you or after you does, you take care of yourself.”
All 11 gymnasts on uneven bars and balance beam following low scores tallied a 9.75 or higher.
“I think that you have to really look at Kylie Fagan, who has that number two spot,” Reighard said. “For her to have not just composure, but it’s grit. It’s ‘I’m going to be able to do what I do and not worry about what wasn’t done.’ Kylie got us back on a role and then we just started climbing from there.”
Three Chippewas were able to score a 9.9 or higher, with junior Taylor Noonan receiving a 9.925 on beam and Harrald and sophomore Taylor Bolender scoring a 9.9 on the floor routine.
“Preslee Harrald has never scored a 9.9 in her life,” Reighard said. “But she wants to win a championship. She really came through.”
CMU started on vault, which Reighard calls the team’s worst event. Freshman Kirstin Stambaugh set the pace for the event, scoring a 9.8 to start.
“The whole team rallied around that first vault, there’s no doubt about it,” Reighard said. “Stambaugh ignited the fire, and I told her that right away, I said ‘you’re responsible for what’s going to happen the rest of the day, because we’re feeling like we can go out and be the team that we’ve always wanted to be.’”
CMU bumped its average score from a 194.75 to a 195.12, which will likely put it in the top 20 in the national rankings.
After finally reaching the 196 platform, Noonan said she wants a 197.
“I think we have more,” Noonan said. “That’s the exciting part, because we go into practice and we’re going to be just as determined to get a 197 now because it’s right within our grasp.”
Reighard said he was pleased the team not only reached the 196 mark, but did it with room to spare.
“When we came off beam with a 49, I don’t think there was a freight train that could have stopped us,” Reighard said. “We need to repeat that on an away meet. A 196 is not an easy score. It’s going to take some grit, some special performances. It’s a start; it’s not the end.”
