The MSU gymnastic team got its first win of the season Friday night over Illinois State at the sixth annual Jan Howard Memorial Flip for a Cure meet, 194.400-193.625.
The mark is the Spartans’ highest of the season and helped them to improve to 1-3 overall.
“It feels good to get a win under our belt because we certainly needed it for our confidence,” head coach Kathie Klages said.
Klages said confidence has been an issue for the Spartans this season, and she hopes a meet win will help gain some momentum going forward.
On the vault, the Spartans controlled the top three spots, with sophomore Taira Neal taking top honors with a score of 9.850. Freshman Ashley Noll and senior Daneen Haba rounded out the trio with respective scores of 9.775 and 9.750. The MSU gymnasts combined for a total score of 48.800 in the event.
The Spartans also dominated the uneven parallel bars, as sophomore Dani Levy notched a career best 9.875 score for first place in the event. Senior Jackie Berg, freshman Ashley Stevenson and Neal also were among the top scorers to help the Spartans to a team score of 48.975.
Once again, Klages’ squad struggled on the balance beam, tallying a team score of 47.650 on the rotation. Sophomore Sarena Bumbarger recorded a score of 9.775, which was good enough for second place in the rotation.
Klages has said all season that her gymnasts are hitting their beam routines during practice but so far it has failed to translate into meet success.
“We’re struggling with just the competitive aspect of it,” Berg said. “We have to make sure we get it down mentally, because it’s not an issue with skill.”
MSU went into the floor rotation clinging to a 145.425-145.175 lead after stumbling a bit on the balance beam, but the Spartans were able to come through with the victory. MSU took the top five spots on the floor and Levy had the highest score of 9.850.
Levy finished the night with an overall score of 38.675, besting Illinois State’s Samantha King.
Although the Spartans were riding high after their first win of the season, Klages said the team still has a lot of room to improve.
“Once we get better on beam, I’m hoping we can just bypass (scores of) 195, and go right to 196 because if we do as well on the other three events as we did tonight, we can definitely do that,” she said.
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