NORMAL, Ill. – In their final home meet of the season, Illinois State sent its four seniors out with a victory as the Redbirds led from start to finish over Southeast Missouri State in a 195.350-192.750 win Saturday on Senior Night at Redbird Arena.
Scoring Breakdown:
• Vault: ISU 48.900, SEMO 47.400
• Bars: ISU 49.150, SEMO 48.000
• Beam: SEMO 48.350, ISU 47.975
• Floor: ISU 49.325, SEMO 49.000
Thoughts from Coach Bob Conkling:
"At our last meet, we didn't perform the way we had been previously, and we let things snowball into a bad performance. We talked about making sure that didn't happen again tonight, and if we made a mistake to have your teammate's back and hit the next routine. I think we did well with that tonight, even after a couple falls on beam, we rocked the last three routines. Three out of the four events were excellent tonight, and I think this sets us up well heading into next week's MIC Championship in Texas."
Team Notes:
• The Redbirds took an early lead, scoring 48.900 on vault while the Redhawks started with a 48.000 on bars.
• On bars in the second rotation, ISU set a season high score of 49.150 with five scores of 9.8 or better … that mark is second highest in school history.
• ISU struggled on beam with a 47.975, as SEMO narrowed the deficit a bit with a strong 49.000 on floor.
• Bouncing back in the final rotation, the Redbirds posted a season-high score of 49.325 on floor with five scores of 9.850 or better … that score was third-highest in school history.
Gymnast Notes:
• The Redbirds took the top two spots in the all-around, with Angelica Labat winning once again with a high score of 49.450 which was just short of her career high of 49.475 set earlier this season against SEMO.
• Freshman Alana Laster came in second in the all-around, setting a new career-high with a 39.200.
• Labat tied her season high with a 9.925 on vault to pick up the event win and the Redbirds took five of the top six spots overall, with Laster in third (9.775), J'Chelle Heard in fourth (9.750) and Charlise Doctor and Jaye Mack tying for fifth place (9.725).
• Senior Sofia Iribarren tied her career high with a 9.900 on bars to take the event win in her final home meet of her career … Madison Kipp was third (9.850), with Laster, Doctor and Labat all tying for fourth place (9.800).
• Labat picked up her second event win of the night on beam, scoring a 9.850 to finish ahead of Kipp in second place with a 9.775.
• Laster, Labat and Mack all finished in a tie for second place on floor with scores of 9.875 to cap off a strong night for ISU.
Up Next:
The Redbirds will head to Denton, Texas, on Friday, March 18, for the 2022 Midwest Independent Conference Championships hosted by Texas Woman's University.
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