Ball State 2015 All-Tournament Team Honorees
Denasiha Christian, junior
Jessical Leko, senior
The Cardinals scored a 193.2, lower than last year's event score of 193.97. Ball State ended the regular season with a 3-10 record.
"It's definitely frustrating because … our expectations are that we build each week and we do better than the week before,” head coach Joanna Saleem said. “We haven't had a poor performance like that in a really long time.”
Saleem said the team had a rough start with bars, their weakest event. She said beam went better, but they did not compete as strongly as they are capable of.
After having a talk about not over or under-compensating and focusing, the team ended the meet strong on floor and vault. However, Saleem said it was too late to catch up.
“When we get to the championship meet, we have to be able to treat it just like any other day and do what we want to do,” she said. “We could have very easily been in fifth place. You count one less fall and we're in fifth place. Count a couple of less falls and you're in the top three or four.”
Junior Denasiha Christian was co-champion on floor and senior Jessica Leko was named co-champion on balance beam. This was Leko's first championship win.
"It's been a long time coming and I was just really excited,” Leko said. “I just wanted to go out there and just lay it all out on the floor and not have any regrets ... It was the best feeling ever."
Despite the loss, Saleem is positive about next year's team. The Cardinals will only be losing two routines due to graduation, and many of the team's younger gymnasts have spent the season on the sidelines, injured.
Saleem said the current junior class will be strong role models next year.
“The future looks really bright for this group next year,” Saleem said. “I think next year you're going to see a really different gymnastics program because they've learned how to be competitive, and next year they're going to be able to take all of those people that are new and all of those people who were hurt and put them together.”
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