The No. 16 Kent State gymnastics team is back on the road this weekend to face Northern Illinois on Sunday. The Flashes are looking to get back to winning after their recent defeat by Central Michigan.

The loss marked Kent State’s (7-2-1, 1-1 Mid-American Conference) first home loss since 2007, which came against the Chippewas as well.

Kent State coach Brice Biggin said the girls have put the last meet behind them and continue to focus on the positives from that meet as they move forward.

“The athletes (need to focus on) the positives and how they competed as a team, and the way they built scores for each other and the confidence they had while competing,” he said. “We need to continue to do things like that the rest of the season if we want to stay up in the national rankings.”

Kent State will look to build off its strong scores and continue their high-scoring ways against Northern Illinois. Senior Christina Lenny (9.875) and junior Rachel Goldenberg (9.800) recorded the two top team scores on the vault during the last meet.

Sophomore Lindsay Runyan is currently tied at No. 8 in the country on the uneven bars and leads the sixth-ranked bars team this season with a high score of 9.925 as well.

Biggin said if the team wants to win this weekend, the athletes need to simply do what they did the last meet.

“We need to go out there confident,” he said. “We need to go out there working as a team and execute all the routines. Each time a girl goes out there and hits a routine, it sets up the next girl as well. So if they can do that, we give ourselves a good opportunity to be very successful.”

Kent State travels to Northern Illinois Sunday. The meet begins at 2 p.m.

Contact Tyler Goddard at [email protected].