Gymnasts compete in Nationals
Chris McCarty
Seniors Katie Teft and Sarah Dame saw their careers come to an end, and sophomore Kara Reighard ended her sophomore season. Reighard, who competed in the all-around, missed becoming CMU’s first All-American by decimals.
“I think the overall picture of having that many individuals had a significant impact on CMU gymnastics,” said Head Coach Jerry Reighard. “The whole meet is set up for teams, and we had the most individual performers out there, and I think that says a lot.”
Dame started the day on the balance beam, and scored a 9.725. Her second event was her best of the day, as she scored a 9.75 on the floor exercise. Dame finished with a 9.7 on vault and a 9.575 on the uneven parallel bars.
Kara Reighard started on the floor exercise, where she turned in a score of 9.575. At one point in her routine she stepped out of bounds, causing a major deduction.
“She had pretty close to the same performance as she did at MAC’s,” Jerry Reighard said. “Her adrenaline was really high, and she nailed her first tumbling pass, but stepped out on the second.”
Reighard had a score of 9.75 on the vault and uneven bars, and finished the day with a 9.825 on the balance beam. She took 11th place in the event.
Teft, who was the only event specialist for CMU, scored a 9.1 on the uneven bars.
“The third rotation was a hectic one for us because we had all three gymnasts competing at the same time,” Jerry Reighard said. “I think it really had a major effect on Katie because she could hear Sarah’s floor music during her routine, and she is not used to that.”
Reighard said Teft was in the running for a National Championship.
“Katie was the last performance of the rotation, and everyone in the gym knew the difficulty of her routine,” Jerry Reighard said. “Every eye was on her, and she fell onto the high bar during her second release move.”
Reighard said Dame and Kara Reighard were the best individual all-around performances of the meet.
“None of the individual all-arounders competed as well as these two did,” he said. “Every other all-arounder that competed as an individual fell, and neither one of them did.”
The national exposure this meet provided, will help the program in the future.
“We burst on to the national scene, and surprised the nation,” Jerry Reighard said.
The team will take on national powerhouses next year.
“If we can fund raise for the airline ticket, we will have our first meet at Stanford in January,” Jerry Reighard said.
The Chippewas finished the season at No. 13 in the country, with an overall record of 30-7. In the MAC, CMU won the regular season and championship title, after going 12-0. Along the way, CMU set a new school record of 197.425 at the MAC Championship. Seniors Teft and Orloski each had two 10 scores in their final season of competition. CMU will return nine gymnasts to next season’s squad.
