High Five: No. 18 Gymnastics soars to record fifth-straight MAC Championship
All that stood between the Central Michigan gymnastics team and its fifth-consecutive Mid-American Conference Championship was a final rotation on the uneven bars.
Considering the team’s struggles on the event this year, this situation was enough to make any CMU fan queasy.
“We had a comfortable lead after the sixth rotation, but that’s one fall,” said head coach Jerry Reighard. “You count one fall and you’re back in their neighborhood.”
While the Chippewas led for nearly the entire meet, Kent State and Bowling Green were still lurking going into the final event. CMU just needed to hold its ground.
However, they didn’t just hold their ground.
Four of the six gymnasts set new personal records, including sophomore Taylor Bolender’s 9.875, sophomore Karlee Teet’s 9.9, junior Taylor Noonan’s 9.9 and junior Kylie Fagan’s 9.95.
The team's 49.475 is the second-best score in CMU uneven bars history, is the highest event score of the season for the Chippewas and helped solidify the title.
“I saw the score after the third event, so I knew we had a good lead,” said senior Emily Heinz. “After Karlee’s bar routine, I think that set things off huge and I knew we were going to have it from there.”
As the final event went on, fans and the team began to sense that the team in maroon was going to come home with gold.
“I think our team likes the pressure,” said senior Brittany Petzold. “We knew that we had to hit everything and once that first person started hitting, it just kept rolling.”
The Chippewas finished the day with a 196.475, their third-highest score of the season and sixth highest in team history.
Reighard said it was faith and a calm demeanor that helped the team bring bars from their worst event to their best event.
“I pray constantly before every meet and I just came out into (bars) knowing what was on the line, what we had to do and what we’ve done in the past wrong, and I just turned it over to God,” Reighard said. “I think that our team was able to do that same thing. They just turned it over and were able to relax and enjoy gymnastics, even though they knew what was on the line and the pressures that were there.”
Noonan hadn’t scored above a 9.675 on bars since Feb. 9 before hitting the 9.9 Saturday.
“Before Taylor Noonan went on bars, I said ‘Taylor, I don’t tell a lot of people this, but I need a 9.6,’” Reighard said. “And she looked at me with this grin on her face, like ‘did I just hear him right? 9.6?’ When she stuck her dismount, I had tears in my eyes, I’ll freely admit it. It was a very joyful time.”
Noonan had a similar reaction.
“I was happy. (I had) tears of joy because I’ve been struggling this year on bars,” Noonan said. “For it to finally come through the way I wanted it, for it to come through on a championship day, it just meant the world to me. I knew that Karlee had just hit a huge routine and for me to just keep building, it meant the world to me.”
The next step for the Chippewas will be regionals, which are held in two weeks. Thanks to their team score they will remain in the Top 18 and are a seeded team.
“Make no mistake about it, we’re up against a monumental task,” Reighard said. “It’s going to be so difficult at regionals, but if you go to regionals and you don’t win your conference title, it’s empty. It’s pretty void.”
While only the Top 12 teams will move on to nationals, Fagan said the team has much more confidence after the victory.
The Chippewas have never made it to nationals before.
The closest CMU has come was in 2003 when the team lost a tiebreaker to Auburn that allowed the Tigers to advance to the national championships.
“We’re not done,” Reighard said. “And they’re not done. They made that very clear even before today that they want to move on. It’ll be hard, but not impossible. We’ll have to be very, very good.”
Final results from MAC Championships:
1. Central Michigan, 196.475
2. Kent State, 195.125
3. Bowling Green, 194.625
4. Northern Illinois, 194.150
5. Ball State, 193.975
6. Eastern Michigan, 193.850
7. Western Michigan, 191.575
