The Ball State gymnastics team recorded its first win of the season on Friday against Mid-American Conference foe Western Michigan.
Ball State won 193.550-193.275, improving its MAC record to 1-2.
“Obviously we're excited that we got a win,” head coach Joanna Saleem said. “That's exciting. It's really good for these guys to come out and walk away with a win. We struggled a little bit here and there tonight, but overall they pulled together as a group, and they maintained some consistency throughout the night."
Saleem said a main reason Ball State won was due to the evenly matched conference teams.
“For us, earlier in the season, we knew we were going against some teams that were ranked pretty high in the rankings and they're pretty solid and they have a lot of depth,” Saleem said. “Now that we're getting into some of these MAC schools, we're very competitive with them. So on any given night it just depends who stays on the equipment and who performs the best that evening.”
Junior Denasiha Christian won first place on vault with a score of 9.75, and senior Jessica Leko won beam with a score of 9.8.
Erin Patchey scored a personal high on floor with a 9.875, earning first place.
“I just love home meets,” Patchey said. “I love the energy and the crowd and I love having the entire team there, and I just kind of put it out there and decided tonight was the night to P.R.”
Saleem said Patchey had been sick all week and had barely even been able to practice.
But Patchey was happy with her performance and the win.
“I'm really happy that we got a win, especially since it's a conference meet. So, this helps our overall record and our MAC record,” Patchey said. “The best part is we still have room to improve. We didn't put our best stuff out there today. There were some mistakes that we could very easily fix so it's exciting to see that we have room to grow.”
The Cardinals return to action when they take on Eastern Michigan at 1 p.m. on Feb 22.
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