Gymnasts smash season records en route to home opening win against NIU
Sunday’s gymnastics meet was the culmination of a team’s ability to fix mistakes and reach goals.
Not only did the Central Michigan gymnastics team meet its desired 195 score, it was able to fix mistakes in order to make Sunday’s meet, which head coach Jerry Reighard called an “undeniable performance.”
“We have emphasized that for two weeks, and last week the mantra I kept saying was that you have to make this undeniable,” Reighard said.
The Chippewas pushed their record to 8-0 by sweeping Northern Illinois in all events and winning with a total score of 195.750-189.100.
CMU started off strong on the vault with five of six gymnasts posting scores of 9.7 or higher. Junior Kristin Teubner paced the event with a season-high score of 9.850 to help the team to a season-high on the vault with a 48.900 total. For Teubner, the key for the team was fixing the little things that have cost them points in past meets.
“This is exactly what we have been waiting for, we have wanted to put these little things together,” Teubner said. “We had above 9.7’s that we counted on every single event, which is a big step for us.”
The next rotation saw the Chippewas mark a new season high, tallying a total score of 48.825. Freshman Brittany Petzold led the way with a 9.875, followed by senior Andrea de la Garza with a 9.800.
The third event of the meet, the balance beam, again saw CMU notch a season high, finishing the event with an 48.900. Coming into the weekend ranked No. 20 nationally, the team was able to remain solid behind the 9.850 score of freshman Emily Heinz.
Reighard said the team’s high scores across all events shows how the team has been able to overcome the struggles from early in the year.
“It says a lot about the character of our team because we have struggled," Reighard said. "Struggled in the sense that we haven’t been able to put together the big routine scores."
The final event of the day saw the squad tally their fourth new season high, with a 49.125 coming in the floor exercise. Senior Kristin Teubner led the way with a high score of 9.925. Teubner went on to lead all competitors in the all-around category with a 39.250, marking her career-high in the all-around.
“This is definitely my best all around performance that I have ever put together,” Teubner said. “I am really proud of it, bars were a little bit shaky for me, but everything else went together really well.”
Freshman Brittany Petzold would finish in second place in the all-around with a score of 39.150, the highest of her career as well. For Petzold the key to maintaining this high level of scoring will be to work hard in the practice gym.
“I feel like in practice I need fix the little things, like I have been doing this whole week, and I feel like I have to perform like I practice everyday,” Petzold said.
Despite the possible distraction of performing in the same gym as the CMU wrestling team, Reighard pointed to that as a perfect scenario for his team to perform well.
“I think that the whole package allowed us gymnasts to really just let it go, not feel like the spotlight was on us,” Reighard said. “We didn’t have nerves that we had to contend with and we competed like we practiced for the first time this year.”
The gymnastics team will return to action when they travel to Champaign, Ill., at 6 p.m. Saturday for a multi-team meet with Minnesota and host Illinois.
