The Ball State University gymnastic team's regular season concluded Friday as the Cardinals finished in fourth place out of four teams in a tournament that included California State University, Fullerton, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and host Arizona State University.
Nebraska won the meet with a score of 196.750, and Arizona State finished second with a 196.000.
The Cardinals (4-13, 1-5 Mid-American Conference) posted a score of 192.925 and finished almost two points below California State-Fullerton's third place score of 194.500.
"They were disappointed," head coach Nadalie Walsh said. "I think the only encouraging thing they felt was their score being close to our season-high [193.350]."
Before competition began, the lingering injuries of Teresa Phipps and Katelyn Busacker during the past two weeks were questions for concern for Walsh and her staff, she said.
"We weren't 100 percent sure of [Phipps' and Busacker's] statuses, and those with minor injuries," Walsh said. "We were just testing the waters, trying to figure out if they were going to go in or not. The only advantage that gives is us we have to be on our tip-toes."
High scores and career bests for the Cardinals came from Bibiana Rodriguez, placing third on the uneven bars with a 9.825, and Brittney Emmons, earning a score of 9.825 on the floor routine.
"I was excited because we've been working on really little things in the gym every day," Rodriguez said of her high score. "I was kind of scared to do them [practice routines] in the meet, because it's really different when you think about the form and the shape in your routine. I actually did it and it paid off."
A healing Katelyn Busacker also earned a career-high score of a 9.800 on the balance beam.
"All in all, it went pretty well [on the floor]," Walsh said. "We made all of our routines in the first two rounds, and on the bars we had two falls; that was kind of the first lull in the meet."
Cardinal gymnasts began competition on the floor routine event, one that has traditionally come last in the meet's four-event rotation.
"It was a really good dry run," Walsh said of her team's unfamiliar sequence of events. "[Floor] is what we're going to start on at [the MAC Championships]. It'll be nice, because if we can do that rotation at conference, we'll be very happy."
Aside from the personal bests, Cardinal gymnasts saw signs of improvement, something that is monitored closely season-long in a very particular way, Rodriguez said.
"We added points to our scores," Rodriguez said. "We take the highest scores we've had throughout the season and add them up to see what our total score would be. We added more scores to that [tonight]."
Ball State will play host to the MAC Championships at 1 p.m. Saturday in Worthen Arena.
It will be the last opportunity to put the finishing touches on routine scores, Walsh said.
"Now we know who's going to be in there for conference; other than that, we just had some mistakes that we won't have next week," Walsh said. "And if they do have them, we don't get another chance to fix them."
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