Silence follows the sound made by a gymnast's head hitting the floor. Luckily, that only happened once at the gymnastics meet against Eastern Michigan University on Friday.
However, that one time may have been enough to cause Ball State University to lose as the Cardinals lost their Mid-American Conference matchup to Eastern Michigan by .600, 186.375 to 185.775.
It was the third meet for the Cardinals and the third loss. Coach Lisa Simonton wasn't pleased with the results.
"We could've done better," Simonton said. "Beam rocked the house. We're rocking one or two events but we can't pull it together for all four events yet. But that's what happens at the beginning of the season."
Ball State only won one event on Friday, the beam. For the individual results, sophomore Erica Gilkerson earned first-place on the beam, contributing 9.650 points to the total score of 47.125. Gilkerson also got fifth-place in the all-around.
There was a tie on the floor with total scores of 46.500. Individual results also contained a tie. Three gymnasts received a score of 9.625. Sophomore Kristin Sprague held one of these first-place positions.
Ball State has only five gymnasts who can compete on the bars. Typically, there are six and the lowest score gets dropped. The low score on the bars, 44.525 points, didn't come as a shock to Simonton. While she was disappointed with the meet, junior Kelly Watson felt good about it.
"I think we just need to keep being together as a team and just being consistent," Watson said. "Winning is always important but I think right now, where we are at, we're doing awesome. Coming from what we have right now, I think we're doing really great."
This is Watson's first year competing all-around. She said it's been awesome and she feels blessed but she is still working on a few things.
"I usually get really nervous for meets and stuff like that, but it's been really good," Watson said. "I've been doing a lot of things just to calm myself down and have fun instead of being nervous all the time."
Watson placed second on the beam, sixth on the floor and second in the all-around with a total score of 38.000. Sophomore Kaitlyn Wills was right behind her, placing third in the all-around with 37.500 points. A new face was also added to the all-around: Sophomore Brittany George earned sixth place. Simonton was eager to have George back and anticipates great things for the upcoming meets.
"We've got to put it together for all four events," Simonton said, "It's going to happen. If it happens this weekend it'd be awesome. We'll work out the kinks like we do every week. I'm not worried about it."
The gymnasts will be working on their routines until the next meet but Simonton said they aren't going to differentiate from their original plan. The next meet is this Friday at 7 p.m. against Kent State.
"Having three meets in a row at home is going to be awesome," Simonton said. "We need to get more people in the stands and cheer us on so we can take on these MAC competitors."
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