Central Michigan University
Northern Illinois
Gymnastics Falls to Northern Illinois
2/7/2015 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
By Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - Frustrating, disturbing, confounding, maddening.
And, just maybe, motivating.
For the second consecutive competition, the Central Michigan gymnastics team failed to live up to expectations on uneven bars and beam. And this time, it cost the Chippewas a Mid-American Conference dual meet.
Northern Illinois posted a season-best 194.025 team score on Friday to edge the Chippewas (193.925) at McGuirk Arena. It came a week after CMU scored a 194.000 in finishing second at a four-team invitational at Illinois State.
And it was a far cry from anything coach Jerry Reighard and his student-athletes expected coming into the season with a talented and veteran-laden lineup where a sixth consecutive MAC title and the program's first NCAA Championships berth were legitimate goals.
"It was not good," said Chippewa senior Kylie Fagan. "Tonight was not CMU gymnastics. I don't who was out there competing. We have done so much work and so many repetitions. It is so sad that we cannot come out here and show everything that we have worked for.
Fagan won the parallel bars with a 9.925 and teammate Karlee Teet was second (9.850). But the Chippewas were forced to count a 9.075 and suffered a similar fate on beam where they counted a 9.150 and a 9.275.
That, despite the fact that CMU gymnasts won both floor and vault, was enough to open the door for the Huskies, who improved to 4-1 overall, 2-1 MAC.
"You can't do Division I gymnastics and count falls and expect to be a conference champion," Reighard said. "Very frustrating and really difficult to understand why this is occurring and I don't have an answer. We do it all week; I can't do any more pressure competitions in our practice than we're already doing."
The Chippewas opened on vault and appeared as though they would bury the Huskies. They swept the top five spots with Rachel Carr and Kirsten Petzold sharing first place at 9.825. Their 49.025 team total was a season best in the event.
"I thought our first event we were on fire," Reighard said. "I really thought we were off to the races."
On bars, CMU's second event, the Chippewas' second and third gymnasts both fell, posting scores of 9.075 and 9.025, and forcing the 9.075 to count toward the team total.
Three Chippewas slipped off the balance beam, CMU's third event, and the Chippewas had to count a 9.150 and a 9.275. Megan Greenfield of NIU won the beam with a score of 9.825.
"I don't think it's our skills, I don't think it's us not doing enough in the gym," Fagan said. "I think we need to have more confidence in ourselves, have more belief in ourselves. I think that is the only thing that is keeping us from reaching all of our goals and from being the real CMU gymnastics that we're striving to be."
CMU's Halle Moraw won the floor exercise with a 9.9 and the Chippewas posted a 49.125 team total in the event, but it wasn't enough to overcome the Huskies and the subpar numbers CMU posted on bars and beam.
The loss left CMU 6-3 overall, 2-1 MAC.
"We've always had the same goal and that's to be the tournament champions," said Reighard, whose team goes to Kent State for a MAC meet on Feb. 15. "It would have been nice to have been the regular-season champions. We've got one loss in the MAC, that's not (a) throw the baby out with the bath water (scenario). I think we can have a respectable regular season. It does change the complexity of going to Kent State.
"It's still there. It just makes it more mathematically difficult to win a regular-season championship. I'm not, by any means, ruling that out."
Players Mentioned
