The No.16 Kent State gymnastics team got back on track by defeating Northern Illinois on the road by a score of 194.800-192.875. The Flashes were led by senior Christina Lenny who won the all-around with a 39.275.

Brice Biggin, Kent State coach, said the vault team had probably its best performance of the year with a combined score of 49.300. The top five scores of the meet were all earned by Kent State gymnasts.

Rachel Goldenberg and Lenny both scored a 9.900. Lauren Wozniak earned a 9.850, and Nikki Moore and Marie Case scored a 9.825.

The Flashes also won the uneven bars with a score of 48.800. Lindsay Runyan continued to lead the team on the event by posting the best score of the day with a 9.875.

Biggin said the floor exercise began to cause problems for the team.

“We kind of stumbled around a lot,” Biggin said. “We didn’t earn the scores that we wanted because we kept making little mistakes that added up. We just didn’t show the control we needed to show on the floor.”

Despite the mistakes, the Flashes were able to win the floor exercise by a score of 48.725-47.700. Lenny (9.850) and Marie Case (9.800) had the two highest scores on the event.

Kent State finished the meet on the beam event, but past struggles came back to haunt them.

Two of the first three gymnasts fell during their routines, and Kent State had to count a fall on the event.

Lenny said the struggles the team experienced on the floor exercise probably carried over to the beam as well.

“We didn’t have to count a fall last week, and beam has actually been one of our stronger events this year so its kind of disappointing,” Lenny said.

She said mistakes could have been made as a result of the girls trying too hard, because she felt the team was prepared and ready to go.

Biggin said the team had some nice beam routines, but they didn’t get set up with scores as a result of the falls.

“We just didn’t do the job today,” Biggin said. “I just don’t think we went out there as confident as we did last week on beam.”

Lenny and Case both scored 9.725 to tie for second place on the beam event.

Biggin said he and the team are excited to be back at home for a couple weeks, because the team has been traveling a lot. The Flashes will take on Western Michigan on Sunday Feb. 27 at 1 p.m.

Contact Tyler Goddard at [email protected].