Central Michigan University Athletics
Gymnastics Hosts Bowling Green on Friday
2/27/2009 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
MOUNT PLEASANT A week after posting its best score in nearly two years, the Central Michigan University gymnastics team looks to follow that up with another strong outing when CMU faces Bowling Green on Friday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m.
The meet will be shown live on the CMU PBS network.
The Chippewas posted a 195.350 last weekend against Northern Illinois, handing the Huskies their first conference loss. At 3-1 in the Mid-American Conference, the Chippewas remain one back of Kent State in the MAC standings and are tied with Eastern Michigan for second in the conference.
“This weekend is another critical battle for seeding at the MAC Championships,” CMU head coach Jerry Reighard. “Bowling Green is a tough team who scored a season high score last weekend. They are going to be excited to compete against us and show they are a team to reckon with at the conference championships. The chance to win a regular season title is still out there but we have to perform well in each of our remaining three meets.”
With so much success in its meet last weekend versus NIU, Reighard has made sure his team is prepared to compete this weekend.
“We are really guarding against a let down this weekend,” Reighard said. “As a coach you always worry about that after a great performance but I believe this team appreciates how much hard work it took to get to that mark and don’t want to throw it away. I think our attitude in practice has been good and the team is really trying to build off last week.”
Also in the back of CMU’s minds is the loss that the Falcons handed the Chippewas last season.
“It just seemed like we couldn’t do anything right last year and Bowling Green took advantage of that,” Reighard said. “Last week against Northern Illinois as the same thing as NIU beat us last year and the team was really determined to not let that happen again. We want to make the MAC Championships a two team race and the only way we can do that is by beating BGSU and Eastern Michigan in our final two MAC meets.”
With the season just four more weeks, the national rankings are becoming more of a focus for the Chippewas as they sit 33rd nationally in RQS (Regional Qualifying Score). The top 36 teams qualify for regionals and CMU will look to continue to solidify a spot with another strong score this week.
“National and regional rankings are a focus for us as we approach the end of the season,” Reighard said. “I think we have done a pretty good job of getting in a good position for regionals but we must to continue to improve our scores or other teams will move past us.”
