Complete Results
NORMAL, Ill. – Season highs on bars and floor paved the way for a breakout meet by the Southeast Missouri gymnastics team at Illinois State on Sunday.
The Redhawks posted a season-best score of 193.925, though the Redbirds ultimately claimed the dual meet by scoring 195.000.
Southeast's afternoon began on uneven bars, where it scored 48.825. The lowest counted score in the first rotation was Kimerly Pickerl's 9.725.
Margaret O'Neal and
Taryn Vanderpool matched each other's output with identical 9.800 marks to finish in a fourth-place tie.
Megan Fosnow and
Taylor Penzien also posted matching scores of 9.750 to help stake the Redhawks to a lead after the Redbirds tallied a 48.425 on vault.
ISU jumped in front of the team standings in the next rotation by scoring 49.000 on bars while Southeast finished with a 48.300 on vault. Fosnow's 9.800 led all Redhawk gymnasts and was good for second place while Vanderpool's 9.750 tied her for third in the competition.
From there, the Redhawks erupted with a brilliant floor performance in rotation three. Five competitors scored 9.800 or higher, led by Penzien's first-place score of 9.875. Fosnow followed with a career-best 9.850,
Emma Garrett tallied a 9.825 while Vanderpool and Pickerl notched career-best scores of 9.800. Southeast finished with a team score of 49.150, which ties for the 10th-best score in school history. The Redbirds tallied a 48.775 on beam, which gave the Redhawks a lead of just under a tenth of a point entering the final event.
Vanderpool notched her third 9.800 score of the day on beam to finish second and lead Southeast. Pickerl helped buoy Southeast's total in the final rotation with a 9.700 of her own, but no other Redhawk gymnast scored higher than 9.625 as they finished just shy of their first 194 score of the season. ISU finished the day with a 48.800 on floor to win the meet.
“We were strong in three events today and I'm happy about those three,” Southeast head coach
Kristi Ewasko said. “However, we still have to fine tune our last event in a meet and put it all together when it counts. Our floor routines were spot on today. All the landings were crisp and the things we worked on this week carried into the meet. We had some good individual performances that we can build on, but again we just need to put all the routines together at the same time. Overall it wasn't a bad performance, but we need to find a way to hit on all cylinders.”
The Redhawks also got an individual win out of Vanderpool in the all-around. The junior finished with a career-best 39.150 to claim her 10th-event victory of the year. Fosnow (38.650) and Penzien (38.450) also competed in the all-around for Southeast.
Southeast returns home next Sunday (March 3) to host Eastern Michigan at Houck Field House. That meet begins at 1 p.m.
