Gymnastics picks up second-place finish in Ball State tri-meet
In its first tri-meet of the season, Central Michigan gymnastics posted a season-best overall team score of 194.650 and placed second in the meet, behind only Ball State’s score of 195.850. Illinois State finished as the close third with 194.525, trailing CMU by only 0.125 points.
CMU started off the meet on the uneven parallel bars but got off to a bit of a slow start, with an overall individual event score of 47.700. Junior Hannah DeMers was the only Chippewa to place in the top-5 for the event (second place, with a score of 9.775).
Meanwhile, Ball State kicked their afternoon off with the vault rotation and received a score of 49.150, which would ultimately secure them a win in the event. ISU started off with a mark of 48.550 in the floor exercise.
Sunday’s meeting featured three all-arounders. Illinois State had two of them, but it was DeMers who took top honors among the three with an all-around score of 39.275. This was the second time DeMers competed in all four events, after earning an all-around score of 39.400 against Eastern Michigan.
While CMU may not have gotten the start it was hoping for, it was able to put it behind them and bounce back the rest of the way. CMU scored at least one full point higher than its mark on bars in each of their remaining events. In addition, the Chippewas managed to top their previous season-best individual event team score not once, but twice (first in the floor exercise, and again in their vault rotation).
CMU got sizable contributions across the board, finishing with eight total top-5 finishes. However, Central’s performance on the floor routine resulted in half of these, getting top-5 finishes from DeMers, Taylor Pitchell and Sierra DeMarinis with scores of 9.850 each. To top it off, junior Ashley Veglucci earned a meet-best score of 9.875, and shared the win with ISU freshman Jaye Mack.
CMU returns to competition at 7 PM on Friday, Feb. 4th as they head to Lexington to take on the Kentucky Wildcats. This will be its fourth consecutive away meet.
