Central Michigan University
Kent State
Gymnasts Rebound With Season-Best
2/15/2015 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
By Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
KENT, Ohio - The up-and-down season that is Central Michigan gymnastics is decidedly back up.
Halle Moraw and Kylie Fagan had two first places each as the Chippewas posted a season-high 196.400 team score in downing Kent State in a Mid-American Conference meet at the Golden Flashes' M.A.C. Center on Sunday afternoon.
Kent State finished with 195.325, its second-highest score of the season. The Chippewas recorded season-best marks on balance beam (49.075) and floor exercise (49.300) and were just shy of their season-best on bars at 49.125 (49.150 is their high-water mark in the event in 2015).
"I really congratulate our seniors," CMU coach Jerry Reighard said. "We put a lot of pressure on them through the preseason and all year. Honestly I laid it on the line with them. I said, 'Win or or lose, it's on your shoulders.'
"We've been touting these six seniors as being the ticket and they hadn't been, until this point."
Moraw and Fagan are two of those seniors. The pair shared first place on beam with Kent State's Rachel Stypinski at 9.900. It was the first time in their respective careers that Moraw and Fagan have scored 9.9 on beam.
Fagan was first on uneven parallel bars at 9.925, the third time this season she has hit that number. Moraw tied with Kent State's Brooke Timko for first on vault at 9.850.
Moraw was second behind Stypinski on floor exercise. Moraw posted a 9.900, Stypinski a 9.950.
While the performances of the Moraws and the Fagans were crucial, so too were those turned in by the likes of seniors Preslee Harrald, Becca Druien and Tori Garcia, along with junior Megan Lamphere.
Harrald scored a 9.825 on floor exercise in her first time competing in the event this season; Durien posted a season-best 9.850 on floor; Garcia tied her season-high with a 9.800 on vault to finish tied for third with teammate Rachel Carr; and Lamphere recorded a season-high 9.850 on bars, finishing second to Fagan.
"I was really pleased with Megan Lamphere," Reighard said. "To finish second behind Kylie Fagan is not a bad thing.
"We just had a lot of great performances. When you're prepared it's really not that hard. It's when you don't have the confidence in yourself that it becomes a mystery."
Reighard said one of the keys was that when one of the Chippewas posted a subpar score, the other athletes on the team did not let it adversely affect their performance.
"Those mistakes are going to happen," he said. "I recognize that, but we didn't bleed. We put a tourniquet on when those things happened and we really shoved those away when they happened. When adversity hit, it didn't have a domino effect."
The win lifted the Chippewas to 7-3 overall and 3-1 in the MAC. They entertain Bowling Green on Sunday, Feb. 22, at McGuirk Arena in their final home meet of the season.
The 196.400 eclipsed the previous season-high of 196.175 the Chippewas set three weeks ago at Ball State. In the two meets between that and Sunday's, the Chippewas slipped to 194.000 and then to 193.925.
"No one's going to ride this, no one's going to be content," Reighard said. "Every Monday they come back into the gym and they're just as passionate and they believe in themselves.
"We have the zeal, the passion. Our challenge is to find a quarter-10th. That's really the team, I think, we are. I don't necessarily see us being a 197 team, but I definitely think we're a mid-196 team and that's going to do great things for us."
Players Mentioned
