Central Michigan University Athletics
Gymnastics Falls In Season Opener to Oklahoma
1/11/2008 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
MOUNT PLEASANT Central Michigan's 2008 gymnastics season got off to a rough start as No. 8-ranked Oklahoma handed CMU a 195.125-188.600 defeat at home in front of 1,021 on Friday evening.
The Sooners move to 4-0 on the season while CMU is now 0-1. Central Michigan is back in action on Sunday, Jan. 13, when it travels to Illinois State for a meet at 5 p.m. CST.
“Oklahoma is a great team and I knew it was going to take a near perfect effort to beat them,” CMU head coach Jerry Reighard said. “We just made too many mistakes to be able to compete with them. Hopefully, we learned a lot of valuable lessons tonight about what it takes to be successful. This is a young team and a lot of them got a ton of experience tonight. We just have to take what we did tonight and work to improve when we compete again on Sunday.”
One of the bright spots for CMU was the performance of sophomore all-arounder Katie Simon. Simon was CMU’s top scorer on bars (9.750) and floor (9.675) as she put together an all-around score of 38.700. That mark was good for second in the all-around, just .050 behind Oklahoma’s five-time All-American Kiara Redmond-Sturms.
“Katie works so hard that it is never surprising to see her succeed,” Reighard said. “She pushes herself in practice to be the best and then is able to hang with the best tonight. She is a real inspiration for this team because of how hard she works.”
The Chippewas began the meet with a 47.675 on vault. Freshman Andrea de la Garza led the way for CMU with a 9.725 while Simon was next with a 9.675. Oklahoma scored a 49.075 on vault. The Sooners tallied the top six scores of the meet with Redmond-Sturms winning the event with a 9.900.
“We made a lot of little mistakes on vault and those tenths of a point really add up,” Reighard said. “One point I tried to stress to the team after the meet is a tenth of a point can be the difference between winning and losing in conference action and we have to work to earn every tenth possible.”
Central Michigan scored a 47.350 on bars while Oklahoma put up a mark of 48.050. Redmond-Sturms score of 9.850 won the event as the Sooners took four of the top five spots. Simon’s mark of 9.750 was third-best overall while senior Jenna D'Alie’s score of 9.725 was CMU’s second-best score. This meet was the first of D’Alie’s career after missing the first three years because of injury.
“Jenna is such a great leader and it was awesome to see her good out and perform well for us tonight,” Reighard said. “Despite the adversity she has faced, she has never given up and has that leadership quality that we need.”
Beam was the closest event of the meet with Oklahoma winning b a score of 48.050 to CMU’s 47.850. Danielle Espinoza and de la Garza tied for team-high honors with a score of 9.725. Haley DeProsper won the event with a mark of 9.825 while Krsiten Smith was second at 9.800.
“We had a pretty solid night on beam but, again, it was a matter of little mistakes adding up on us,” Reighard said. “We need to be cleaner in our routines and have better transitions between skills.”
The Chippewas struggles came to a head on floor as CMU scored a 45.725 while Oklahoma won the event with a score of 49.150. Simon was CMU’s top scorer with a 9.675 as the Sooners took six of the top seven places in the event. Redmond-Sturms won the event with a score of 9.925.
“I don’t really know what happened on floor,” Reighard said. “To fall on five of six routines is really perplexing because I know we can hit all of those skills we missed on. Katie did a really solid job for us on floor.”
The Sooners move to 4-0 on the season while CMU is now 0-1. Central Michigan is back in action on Sunday, Jan. 13, when it travels to Illinois State for a meet at 5 p.m. CST.
“Oklahoma is a great team and I knew it was going to take a near perfect effort to beat them,” CMU head coach Jerry Reighard said. “We just made too many mistakes to be able to compete with them. Hopefully, we learned a lot of valuable lessons tonight about what it takes to be successful. This is a young team and a lot of them got a ton of experience tonight. We just have to take what we did tonight and work to improve when we compete again on Sunday.”
One of the bright spots for CMU was the performance of sophomore all-arounder Katie Simon. Simon was CMU’s top scorer on bars (9.750) and floor (9.675) as she put together an all-around score of 38.700. That mark was good for second in the all-around, just .050 behind Oklahoma’s five-time All-American Kiara Redmond-Sturms.
“Katie works so hard that it is never surprising to see her succeed,” Reighard said. “She pushes herself in practice to be the best and then is able to hang with the best tonight. She is a real inspiration for this team because of how hard she works.”
The Chippewas began the meet with a 47.675 on vault. Freshman Andrea de la Garza led the way for CMU with a 9.725 while Simon was next with a 9.675. Oklahoma scored a 49.075 on vault. The Sooners tallied the top six scores of the meet with Redmond-Sturms winning the event with a 9.900.
“We made a lot of little mistakes on vault and those tenths of a point really add up,” Reighard said. “One point I tried to stress to the team after the meet is a tenth of a point can be the difference between winning and losing in conference action and we have to work to earn every tenth possible.”
Central Michigan scored a 47.350 on bars while Oklahoma put up a mark of 48.050. Redmond-Sturms score of 9.850 won the event as the Sooners took four of the top five spots. Simon’s mark of 9.750 was third-best overall while senior Jenna D'Alie’s score of 9.725 was CMU’s second-best score. This meet was the first of D’Alie’s career after missing the first three years because of injury.
“Jenna is such a great leader and it was awesome to see her good out and perform well for us tonight,” Reighard said. “Despite the adversity she has faced, she has never given up and has that leadership quality that we need.”
Beam was the closest event of the meet with Oklahoma winning b a score of 48.050 to CMU’s 47.850. Danielle Espinoza and de la Garza tied for team-high honors with a score of 9.725. Haley DeProsper won the event with a mark of 9.825 while Krsiten Smith was second at 9.800.
“We had a pretty solid night on beam but, again, it was a matter of little mistakes adding up on us,” Reighard said. “We need to be cleaner in our routines and have better transitions between skills.”
The Chippewas struggles came to a head on floor as CMU scored a 45.725 while Oklahoma won the event with a score of 49.150. Simon was CMU’s top scorer with a 9.675 as the Sooners took six of the top seven places in the event. Redmond-Sturms won the event with a score of 9.925.
“I don’t really know what happened on floor,” Reighard said. “To fall on five of six routines is really perplexing because I know we can hit all of those skills we missed on. Katie did a really solid job for us on floor.”
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