Illinois State gymnastics places third in MIC Conference Championships

NORMAL, Ill.- Last week Illinois State Gymnastics was defeated by Pittsburgh and West Virginia. But the weekend was not a total loss with sophomore Savannah Ray being named gymnast of the week and freshman Mia Leblanc named MIC newcomer of the week.

Illinois State Head Coach Cassandra Ringer spoke on Leblanc’s success “… she has really been able to step up where needed, she’s had the skills and we’ve been working hard on cleaning things up to really get those scores up…”. Also, last week at the tri-meet the Redbirds recorded a season high on floor in which Coach Ringer saw what she referred to as “uncharacteristic things” from the team but noted that Ray “stepped into the floor lineup for the first time in her college career. We had focused a lot on the details and really controlling our landings. So, I was very pleased with that performance over there”. 

Illinois State hosted the MIC conference on Friday where the Redbirds were going in as reigning champions over the last three years. This was the first time that Coach Ringer hosted the conference under the title of head coach for Illinois State. Ringer says that she approaches the conference just like any other day “… every time you go up there is independent of itself. My biggest thing is nothing more or less. Just your normal and really focusing on the control-ables”. Regarding the teams performance going into conference coach said “ if you’re focusing on the process the outcome will take care of itself… that’s another thing that I’m really proud of this group they’ve really worked hard to not get distracted in those situations when things maybe don’t go hundred percent their way but still coming out and controlling what you can control”. With this being the last meet, Ringer touched on how the seniors of the team are feeling “we always stress that this is another day, it’s another competition, it’s another opportunity. There’s plenty of time to celebrate some of those longer career types of things but we’ve got a job to do and then we can celebrate all of those things later on. I really saw a lot of joy in what they were doing”. 

In the conference on Friday, three Redbirds took home titles in their third place finish. The meet began on vault where Ray finished in a four way tie for fourth place with a score of 9.800. Illinois State finished vault by a score of 48.275.

Vault was followed by bars where sophomore duo Jada Beswick and Madyson Baucom tied for second place with a score of 9.800. Bars ended with a score of 48.475 marking the midway point through the meet.

On beam, sophomore Ally Lau placed first with a score of 9.850 earning her the first MIC individual title. Ray tied for second place with a score of 9.825 which earned her the All-MIC First Team Honors. The Redbirds recorded their second highest score on beam with a 48.900.

Last up for Illinois State on floor, senior pair Jaly Jones and Leah Davis were part of a four way tie for first place with a score of 9.850. Additionally, Senior Courtney Woods tied for fifth place with a 9.800 earning her the All-MIC Second-Team honors. The Redbirds finished floor with a score of 48.900, their second highest team score on the year to finish the meet in third place.

For all things Redbird gymnastics, stay tuned to wznd.com.