NORMAL, Ill. – Coming off a busy weekend with two matches at home last weekend, the Illinois State gymnastics team will travel south on I-55 on Saturday to compete against Greenville, who is competing in their inaugural collegiate gymnastics season. The meet is set to begin at 7 p.m. and will be contested at the Farm Heritage Museum in Greenville.
The Redbirds head into the meet coming off a win over Western Michigan last Sunday at CEFCU Arena. ISU used a strong performance on the floor in the final rotation to narrowly defeat the Broncos by a score of 193.875-193.850.
“We are looking forward to this historic meet, as Greenville will host its first ever NCAA college gymnastics competition,” ISU head coach Bob Conkling said. “We have worked hard on eliminating deductions this week and are focused on improving each week on our overall team score. I feel the team is ready and able to achieve this goal at Greenville on Saturday.”
For the second week in a row, ISU hauled in a pair of weekly conference honors as Nirel Bart-Williams was named the Midwest Independent Conference Gymnast of the Week and Jay Mack earned MIC Performance of the Week honors following their performances against Lindenwood and Western Michigan.
Bart-Williams finished in third place in the all-around twice over the weekend and was the top finisher for the Redbirds all-around in Sunday’s win over Western Michigan. She tied for first place on vault in both meets with matching scores of 9.825 and had a pair of second-place finishes on floor over the weekend as well. Her score of 38.575 against Western Michigan tied her career-best and is currently the third-best all-around score in the MIC.
Mack not only put together a pair of top three finishes on vault, including tying for first in the win over Western Michigan, but she also won twice on floor for the Redbirds including her season-best score of 9.875 on Friday against Lindenwood. That score is tied for the top score on the event in the MIC this season and is tied for the highest individual score in any event so far in 2023. Her score of 9.850 on Sunday also secured the win for the Redbirds over Western Michigan.
Greenville will host their first home meet of the season, after competing at Ohio State and Southeast Missouri State in the first two weekends of the season. The Panthers placed fourth out of four teams in Columbus, Ohio, and were third out of three teams last weekend in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
The Panthers collected a score of 180.475 last weekend, falling to Southeast Missouri’s total of 193.350 and Centenary’s 189.825. Greenville recorded its top score of 46.875 on the vault, placing second of the three teams, and were led by Amara Nelson who tied for fourth with a total score of 9.650.
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