The first of two remaining Mid-American Conference matchups for the Ball State University gymnastics team will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday at Eastern Michigan University.
Ball State (1-4, 0-4 MAC) has witnessed the brunt of conference opponents in the preceding weeks, but being one of two teams that remain winless in the MAC doesn't sound as bad as it might look, assistant coach Katie Malott said.
"It's really gaining their confidence in the sense that they can see how close they are with making the mistakes we've made," Malott said of the team's margin of defeat. "That continues to bring in more motivation for them to work on all those little things so that the meets become easier for them."
Eastern Michigan (3-3, 2-1 MAC) comes off of a 2008 season in which it placed second at the MAC Championships, losing to Kent State University by less than two points. More recently, the Eagles are rebounding from losses to No. 16 University of Michigan and conference-rival Central Michigan University on Feb. 6 in the Annual State of Michigan Classic.
The last Cardinal athletic team to travel to Ypsilanti, Mich., came away with a victory, as the men's basketball team ousted the Eagles 46-42 on Tuesday. Malott said Ball State has prepared to continue to winning ways.
"We've been working a lot on doing more pressure sets to get the girls in the mindset of getting them to the next level," Malott said. "We had a few mistakes on [balance] beam, and I know that that's not going to happen again."
In gymnastics, pressure sets are the equivalent of a simulated, intra-squad formatted meet. Meet-like paces are put into place and provide an atmosphere comparable to what can be expected come the day of the competition.
"We have a couple more numbers this week, so we've picked it up again and are really excited going into the weekend," Malott said. "Eastern Michigan is a very good team, but they are a beatable team, and I think we can go and do that. It would be really exciting to finish off the [conference] season with wins."
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