Gymnastics finishes regular season strong, defeating the Broncos
Senior night and the regular season ended with a big victory over rivals Western Michigan.
On Saturday, the Chippewas broke the 196 mark for the fourth time this season. CMU sent their two seniors off with an impressive last home showing.
The Chippewas took an early lead on vault scoring a 49.125. The only thing holding CMU back for the second meet in a row, was their performance on bars, failing to score 49.
Sophomore Taylor Bolender had a great routine to answer to a pair of falls in front of her.
“Taylor Bolender is an incredible sophomore, she has done things that haven’t even sunk in to her,” said head coach Jerry Reighard.
Sophomore Kylie Fagan finished with a strong 9.85 to keep the Chippewas in contention.
“We started really well on vaulting. Bars, two weeks in a row has been a nemesis,” Reighard said. “It’s really hard for me to understand but we are going to fix it, we have five days of practice to do that.”
Although the Chippewas struggled in their second event, they did what they always have by putting bad results past them and firing away at the next events. CMU scored an incredible beam score of 49.2, junior Halle Moraw lead the team scoring a 9.875.
Moraw’s consistency has propelled her to be on the roster for vault, beam and floor.
“Today we focused on our last opportunity to practice a championship and that’s what we did,” Moraw said. “Next week we have our championships and we have to repeat and do even better than we did today."
CMU finished on floor with a pair of 9.9’s coming from Bolender and Moraw. The duo lead the team to a miraculous score of 49.3 to end the meet and send the seniors away with a lasting victorious memory.
“Right before floor I went up to her (Taylor Bolender) and gave her a fist bump and said let’s win floor together and that’s what we did,” Moraw said.
The 196 score boosts the confidence of the gymnasts moving into the Mid-American Conference Championship next Saturday.
The Chippewas looking to make a fifth MAC Championship in a row and send seniors and captains Brittany Petzold and Emily Heinz with a perfect four years at CMU.
