BGSU Gymnastics fell to the Central Michigan Chippewas on Friday night in a close Mid-American Conference contest. With a strong floor performance as a team, CMU was able to gain the lead and take the match, 194.100 – 193.775.  

The Falcons and Chippewas, each showcasing polished vault and bars routines, made it clear the match came down to the final two rotations; beam and the floor. The beam proved challenging to the Chippewas with low average scores throughout the roster, mostly due to four of the six CMU gymnasts falling off the beam.

This gave the brown and orange an opportunity, one they would take, with freshman Elise Brzoska scoring a 9.725, the highest individual scorer in the beam for the night. 

Coming off of a less-than-perfect run on the beam, the Chippewas proved to still be in the running. CMU came into the final rotation and left with three of their gymnasts scoring higher than 9.800 in the floor exercise.

With this strong floor performance, the Chippewas were able to secure the lead they needed to take the match.  

In the all-around portion, senior Dahlia Solorzano-Caruso tied with CMU’s Luciana Alvarado-Reid for first place with 38.800 points.

Another noteworthy performance for BG was by Katrina Mendez Abolnik, who scored the highest in the vault as an individual (9.875), logging a personal record and giving BSGU an early lead.

Adding to the season scoresheet, this matchup also brought five personal records in multiple events, including the all-around.  

Head Coach Kerrie Turner looks ahead and is proud of the team’s improvement and dedication throughout the season thus far.  

“The team did a great job to get the meet started and the energy was outstanding throughout the meet,” said Turner. “We had a great opportunity to win, and we will need on work handling those big pressure situations on beam to finish the meet. This will be an opportunity to review, learn and get back in the gym to be ready for next week.” 

The Falcons jump back into action on Friday, Feb. 3 to face Illinois State on the road for a break from MAC competition at 8 p.m.  

For more information about the team, visit the athletics webpage.