Sunday, the Ball State Gymnastics team hosted the "Taylor Swift Eras Day” meet at Worthen Arena at 1 p.m, marking their first home meet.
Going against Illinois, Southeast Missouri (SEMO) and Wisconsin Eau-Claire, the Cardinals came into the arena with high energy coming from the "Beauty and the Beast” meet held at Columbia, Missouri Jan. 3 with a score of 194.925.
“As a team, I think today, everybody had each other's backs really well, and we didn't let one little slip up stop us from following through till the end of that event and to the end of the meet,” All-around Fifth-year Hannah Ruthberg said.
Following the conclusion of the meet, the Cardinals won the event with a score of 194.450.
“I love feeding off of their energy,” All-around Junior Zoe Middleton said. “I love looking into the audience and seeing smiles, so it really gives me a lot of energy when I see them having fun.”
Starting off on vault, All-around Senior Carissa Martinez, started the Cardinals off with a 9.725. All-around Sophomore Lindsay Girard followed up with an 8.925. All-around Senior Cai Afalla and All-around Freshmen Karli Mercer scored 9.675 and 9.700, respectively.
The two highest scores from the team came from Middleton and Ruthberg with 9.800s.
After the first rotation, the total scores, using the top five scores, were Ball State with 48.700 on vault, Illinois with 48.475 on the uneven bars, SEMO with 47.375 on the balance beam and Eau-Claire on floor with 44.550.
On the second rotation, the Cardinals took flight on the uneven bars, starting off with All-around Senior Grace "Sumi” Sumner with a 9.600. Middleton stuck her dismount off the bars with a 9.800, gaining the highest score on the bars for Ball State.
All-around Sophomore Ava Molina received a 9.600, All-around Junior Mary Rose Bellan a 9.350 and All-around Sophomore Ashley Szymanski a 9.525.
Ruthberg, fifth in the line-up, started her routine with a springboarded glide kip on to the high bar, sticking her dismount with a 9.650.
“My first handstand on bars, I definitely had to work really really hard to save that and bring that back, but I felt like I remained composed and trusted my training and finished that routine exactly like I know how, and I was really proud of the rest of that routine and the stuck dismount at the end,” she said.
All-around Freshman Jordana Phillis ended the bars rotation with a 9.600.
After the second rotation, the event total on the uneven bars for Ball State was 48.175, Illinois on balance beam with 48.175, SEMO on floor with 48.375, Eau-Claire on vault with 47.625.
On the third rotation, the Cardinals moved to the balance beam, with Molina, Sumner, All-around Sophomore Delany MacMahon, Middleton, Ruthberg, Szymanski and Mercer competing.
Molina started the team off with a 9.775. Following, Sumner received a 9.800, MacMahon a 8.625, Middleton a 9.350, Ruthberg 9.700 and Szymanski 9.800. Mercer finished beam with 9.775.
During warm-ups, Ruthberg split-the-beam, but instead of taking the stumble with her in the performance, she followed the theme of the night and took Taylor Swift's advice of shaking it off.
“If you know gymnastics, you know splitting the beam. That's the nightmare that everybody has about beam is you split it right down the middle, and that is what I did during warm-up. But I mean, you just gotta 'shake it off,’ as Taylor Swift says, and just keep moving. We have a pretty good mindset on the team, where it's the goldfish kind of mindset, … like take what you need and leave the rest,” she said.
The third rotation ended with Ball State's event total for beam 48.425, putting them in the lead for that event. SEMO on vault received 48.450, Ball State maintaining the lead on vault. Illinois received 48.575, putting them in the lead, on floor and Eau-Claire received 45.125 on the uneven bars, Illinois in the lead.
For the fourth and final rotation, the Cardinals hit the floor. Leading the charge, Martinez scored a 9.800. Also competing were Molina, scoring 9.775, All-around Junior Alauna Simms, 9.825, and Afalla, 9.750, and Ruthberg, 9.850.
Simms' performance was one of the many head coach Joanna Saleem was proud of, especially seeing the rest of the team plugging in to her performance and supporting her.
Closing for Ball State were Middleton, who received the highest floor routine score, with a 9.900 and Girard with 9.750.
Middleton felt her high score bolstered her confidence for the rest of the season.
“I love floor so much. So, when I can just soar high and just do my job, it just feels so good,” she said.
Ball State ended the fourth rotation with a total of 49.150 on floor, putting them in the lead.
Eau-Claire ended their fourth rotation on the balance beam with a 44.200, SEMO with 45.550 on the uneven bars and Illinois with 48.950 on vault, putting them in the lead.
Despite a shaky start, the Cardinals ended strong, winning All-Around with 194.450. Trailing behind was Illinois with 194.175, SEMO with 189.750 and Eau-Claire with 181.500.
The All-Around Gymnast was the Cardinal's Ruthberg with 39 points in total.
With Middleton scoring the highest score on floor, Illinois's Chloe Cho, with 9.850, received the highest score on vault, Middleton and Illinois's Makayla Green and the Cardinals's Middleton tying for the highest on uneven bars with 9.800 and Illinois's Amelia Knight on balance beam with 9.850.
Saleem said the team had a strong ending, but to improve and grow, the team will be focusing on the little things.
Though Ball State was solid on bars last meet, with 49.050 total, the coaching staff aims to focus more on the team's comfortability with the event and anxiety to compete overall, Saleem said.
Going along with the team’s philosophy of focusing on performance rather than scores, Saleem noted the team will continue on learning to let go of errors.
Middleton hopes to continue working on her cues as well as what she says to herself before she performs.
Overall, Saleem was proud of the Cardinals’ energy, their team spirit and their performance, which carried on to the team.
“We just felt super together, and I think that is the only way that we really have fun is when we're all in it together,” Middleton said.
Ruthberg shared Middleton's sentiment.
“The scoring was pretty, pretty tight today, but we were really focused on chasing performance and investing in each other and trying to ignore the numbers, so regardless of where the final scores lied or event scores lied, we were all really, really proud of each individual performance and team performance that we gave today,” Ruthberg said.
The Cardinals next meet, the "Golden Girls Classic” will be Jan. 17 in Eastern Michigan going against Eastern Michigan, Winona State and Northern Illinois at 6 p.m.
Contact Ella Howell via email at ella.howell@bsu.edu.
Contact Hannah Amos via email at hannah.amos@bsu.edu or on X @Hannah_Amos_394.
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