Ball State University's gymnastics team will travel for almost eight hours on Friday to compete in the Missouri Cat Classic with Missouri, Northern Illinois and Pittsburgh. The team hopes this trip will go smoother than the traveling adventure they experienced last weekend.
In addition to being three hours late, the bus was also too small and broke down after 10 miles of highway travel.
The athletes and coaches ended up in a rest area for almost three hours.
Junior Kelly Watson found humor in the situation.
"I compared the bus that we took to the rest area to the Magic School Bus," Watson said. "That's kind of what it looked like."
Another bus eventually came to get the team.
Coach Lisa Simonton said the traveling experience was interesting.
"We had Murphy's Law: What could go wrong, will and it will be bad," Simonton said.
This weekend's trip is expected to reflect a mid-season competition, not Murphy's Law. Ball State has already competed against Northern Illinois, the replacement for Brigham Young, on Jan. 15.
Simonton said that significant improvement will be seen between this meet and the last time they competed against Northern Illinois. She said the Missouri Cat Classic is a really big meet.
"This meet has been going on, it's sponsored, we have a banquet involved, they give away apparel for the athletes and there is huge community support," Simonton said. "I think it will be a really neat, fun experience for them."
The schedule shows that team is competing on Friday and Saturday but Friday is the only day of competition that counts for NCAA.
Saturday is more of a show for the community, based upon Friday's performances.
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