The BG gymnastics team had a tough weekend as it traveled to Illinois for the Chicago Style Invite on Friday before coming back home on Sunday to Anderson Arena.
The Falcons lost to 18th ranked Boise State 194.325 to 196.325 in the Chicago Style Invite and to 19th ranked Central Michigan 195.550 to 196.500.
With this pair of losses, the Falcons drop to 5-4 overall and lose their first conference meet of the season dropping to 3-1 in the MAC along with losing their first home meet of the year. Despite chalking up a loss, the Falcons seemed to be optimistic and happy about the way the team performed in their meets.
“I actually don’t think that they were all that concerned with the losses because our scores were so good,” said head coach Kerrie Turner. “Sometimes that is challenging for fans to understand, that scores are even a little bit more important than wins and losses they know that this team that we competed against is not out of reach so their feeling good because they know going into the MAC championship at the end of the year there is a lot of possibilities to come out on tops.”
Although they lost to Boise State, the Falcons did have some positive feedback, defeating both North Carolina 194.325 to 192.075 along with the University of Illinois-Chicago 194.325 to 191.950 at the Chicago Style Invite. Along with posting their best score in eight years in the meet against Central Michigan with a 195.550 score with the help of Gina Locigno who seemed to shine in this meet, despite the loss, after struggling in the Chicago Style Invite.
“Gina had a little bit of a rough meet on Friday and I know she was not satisfied with it,” Turner said. “She had not been feeling well and it was just not her best competition. She came in here really hungry to perform today, and it was just awesome and what an amazing job to finish second and surpass the 39 mark in the all-around.”
Locigno posted 9.850 on the vault, a 9.600 on the bars, a 9.875 on the beam, and a 9.850 on the floor, beating her career best in the vault, balance beam, and all-around score. She and Megan Harrington got their career bests in the balance beam and all-around score as well.
The Falcons look to build on these losses as they reflect and prepare for the rest of the regular season and into post season play.
“We have been trying to get the girls to understand we think that they are a 196 plus team and they have to get close to those scores in order for them to feel that we can achieve that,” said Turner. “I think they are going to walk into Maryland next week knowing that’s what we are going after. Settling at the 194 mark is not going to be enough anymore to get to our goals; we have to want to push past that 196 mark and they are ready and really inspired.”
The BG gymnastics team looks to get back on the right foot next weekend as they take on Maryland and Yale in College Park, Md. on Feb. 15 at 2 p.m.
