The gymnastics team flipped for the cure in the annual ‘Pink Meet’ to raise support for breast cancer research Saturday.

The team showed its support by wearing special leotards with a pink ribbon across the chest, but the meet did not go as well as the Falcons hoped when it lost 193.825 to 195.800 to Kent State on Saturday.

“I thought the team did a good job tonight, we knew that Kent was going to be a big challenge for us,” Head Coach Kerrie Beach said.

Although sophomore Amanda Lievendag fell during her attempt in the first rotation of vault, the Falcons and Flashes were tied with an overall score of 48.700. Danielle Wishart had the best vault score for the Falcons with 9.825. Jamilah Ali registered her lowest vault score of the season with a 9.750.

The next rotation proved costly for the Falcons.

“Unfortunately, [on uneven] bars we had a couple falls there and that pulled our team score down a little bit, but the team rebounded so well,” Beach said.

Junior Lindsay Koch and Lievendag fell during their routines and earned an 8.325 and 9.175 respectively.

“Amanda Lievendag had a rough day today, we really rely on her on vault and bars,” Beach said. “I know that she will rebound and get back to it next week.”

There were several deductions during the floor exercise. Junior Megan Harrington and senior Danielle Wishart stepped out of bounds, resulting in a tenth of a deduction each.

“Obviously we knew that we weren’t going to count any mistakes in order to win. Once that mistake happened on bars. I was really glad they didn’t mentally give up on it,” Beach said. “They did great coming back, but we needed to hit every single routine tonight.”

Megan Harrington said the team does not quit easily.

“We worked really hard to come together and not let it affect the rest of our meet,” said Harrington. “The meet is not over until the last person finishes their routine. We wanted to finish out strong no matter what happened on the vault or the bars.”

During her floor exercise, Jamilah Ali did a double layout — two flips in the air while the body is completely straight. This was the first time all year for Ali and for the team to do this kind of flip in a routine.

This meet drew an attendance of 700 as a result of the many promotions put on by the gymnastics and the athletic department.

“We worked really hard all week to get people here, and just seeing so many faces in the crowd gives you the motivation to go out there and do your best for all the extra people that came,” said Harrington.

Freshman Alyssa Nocella agreed that the crowd was good motivation.

“Big crowds are a lot of fun, it gets you more pumped up, gives you adrenaline and makes it a lot more fun to compete,” Nocella said.