Championship Central | Live Results | ESPN
Ypsilanti, Mich. -- The 2022 Mid-American Conference Gymnastics Championship will take place on Saturday, March 19th in Ypsilanti, Michigan on the campus of Eastern Michigan University. The one-day Championship will feature all seven MAC Gymnastics teams as they face off for the MAC Title.
Ball State Cardinals
The Cardinals will be looking to claim just the second MAC Championship in program history, with BSU's first and only crown coming in 2002.
BSU enters the meet with the potential to score big, having already surpassed the 196.000 mark for the first time in program history this season, with a program record score of 196.325 in the Feb. 20 dual meet versus Eastern Michigan.
Throw together Ball State's best individual event scores of the season and the team has the ability to score a 196.800-or-higher: 49.150 on Vault (Jan. 30), 49.100 on Bars (Feb. 20), 49.150 on Beam (Jan. 30) and 49.400 on Floor (Feb. 20).
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Bowling Green Falcons
The Bowling Green gymnastics team (2-13, 2-4 MAC) returns to action on Saturday afternoon in the MAC Championship, hosted by Eastern Michigan at the Gervin GameAbove Center.
All seven MAC gymnastics schools will participate on Saturday, including: Ball State, Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, NIU and Western Michigan.
During the regular season BGSU picked up wins at Ball State and against Eastern Michigan.
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Central Michigan Chippewas
The Chippewas, who are seeking their first MAC Championships title since 2018, have the third best national qualifying behind Western Michigan and Kent State. The Chippewas are ranked No. 1 in the conference on the vault, No. 2 on floor exercise, and No. 3 on both uneven parallel bars and balance beam.
CMU is led by junior Hannah DeMers, who has the best all around NQS in the league. She is second on beam, third on both bars and vault, and sixth on floor exercise. CMU's Sierra DeMarinis is ranked No. 1 on floor exercise, while teammate Katie Kowalski is second on vault.
The Chippewas improved steadily throughout the season, starting with a 193.425 team score in their opening meet; they cracked the 196 barrier with a sensational 196.475 in their sixth meet of the season and then posted a 196.650 in defeating co-regular season champion Kent State at McGuirk Arena on Feb. 27.
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Eastern Michigan Eagles
Eastern Michigan enters the conference meet, March 19, looking to repeat as Mid-American Conference Champions. Last season, the team secured the title with an overall score of 195.900.
Freshman Ella Chemotti is the beam queen of the Mid-American Conference this season. Chemotti ended the regular season ranked first in the league on beam with an NQS of 9.875. The freshman has scored 9.900-or-higher three times this season, including her personal-best 9.950 in the EMU Quad, Jan. 28.
Sophomore Raisa Boris has an NQS of 9.830 on bars, which is fifth in the Mid-American Conference in the event. Freshman Ella Chemotti leads the conference on beam with an NQS of 9.875. The freshman's 9.950 during the EMU Quad, Jan. 28, is the highest score in the league on the event this season and has only been done by one other gymnast, Amanda Gruber of Western Michigan.
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Kent State Golden Flashes
The Golden Flashes find themselves riding high after their best meet of the season on Sunday, when they posted an overall score of 196.850, the team's third-highest score ever and its highest since 2004. This gave Kent State the victory in the regular season finale over Western Michigan, who posted a score of 196.725. Going into the meet, the Flashes and Broncos were neck-and-neck in the fight for first place in the MAC. But with Kent State's victory, they earned a share of the Regular Season MAC Championship with Western Michigan.
In that meet, Kent State put up its highest floor total of the season and fifth-highest ever at 49.550. Helping the Flashes reach this milestone was freshman Alyssa Guns, whose 9.950 mark on floor was first meet in the meet. Junior Karlie Franz posted a score of 9.925 on the event as well.
Sophomore Sarah Haxton finished first in the meet on bars with a score of 9.875. The Flashes were able to win that event with a total score of 49.250. Kent State also performed very well on the balance beam, the event on which they've probably shown the most improvement since the season began. Kent State won the beam against Western Michigan, 49.200 to 49.125, with senior Cami Klein finishing first in the meet on the event with a score of 9.925, a new personal record for the senior.
In the all-around category, junior Rachel DeCavitch finished tied for first with a score of 39.300.
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Northern Illinois Huskies
Start with last weekend's school record-breaking 196.350 team score in the George Gervin GameAbove Center, site of Saturday's championship meet, marking the second time this season NIU has broken the record. Then there are NIU's recent results in the MAC Championship as the Huskies have recorded the top three finishes in school history at the last three championship meets, including the program's first MAC title in 2019. There are seniors Tara Kofmehl, Morgan Hooper, Kelsey Martz and Gabby Welch – the last class of Huskies remaining who were part of that 2019 team. Add juniors Brookelyn Sears and Natalie Hamp and sophomore Alyssa Al-Ashari, and NIU's line-up returns seven gymnasts and 13 routines who were part of last year's second-place finish.
NIU head coach Sam Morreale said that bringing a relatively experienced team – 16 of 24 spots in the tentative line-up are held by juniors and seniors - into the MAC Championships provides a level of comfort, championship experience in a unique meet setting featuring seven teams and high level gymnastics.
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Western Michigan Broncos
Head coach Penny Jernigan's squad is looking to win its sixth MAC title. The Broncos won the conference championship meet in 1986 and 1987 under then-head coach and recently retired WMU athletics director Kathy Beauregard, before adding two more championships in 2006 and 2013. In 2020, Jernigan's Broncos captured the league's regular season title before the postseason meet was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Second Team All-MAC selection Payton Murphy paces the Broncos and ranks second in the MAC with a national qualifying score (NQS) of 39.345 in the all-around. The junior captured the all-around title three times for Western Michigan this season, and broke the program record for the all-around twice, most recently on March 5 at Michigan State, when posted a 39.400 all-around score to lead the Broncos to a program record score of 196.725. Murphy also ranks in the top-5 in the league in NQS in floor (5th, 9.885), beam (T-2, 9.855) and vault (4th, 9.850).
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