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Life > Athletics > Gymnastics >3/28/08
PIONEERS STRUGGLE AT MIC CHAMPIONSHIPS
Meet Results (PDF file)
 SHREVEPORT, Louisiana (March 28) – The Texas Woman’s University Pioneers recorded a team score of 191.075 to place fourth at the 2008 Midwest Independent Conference (MIC) Championships on Friday night in Shreveport, Louisiana.
The University of Illinois-Chicago won the conference title with a score of 193.850. The Flames were followed in the team standings by Southeast Missouri State University (192.025), Centenary College (191.775), TWU, and Illinois State University (190.775).
The Pioneers’ quest for their second MIC championship in three years (they won the 2006 event) was derailed by their own early mistakes and miscues. TWU counted two falls on floor exercise and one fall on beam. By the time the meet reached its halfway point, the Pioneers were already facing a sizable deficit.
“We just dug ourselves too big of a hole,” said TWU head coach Frank Kudlac. “You can’t perform like that at the end of the year and expect to win a meet.”
Matching six-for-six efforts on vault and bars, their final two events of the night, couldn’t even pull the Pioneers back into championship contention.
“We gave up too many points with our falls,” explained Kudlac. “In order to win a highly competitive meet such as this one you have to be solid on all four events. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for us tonight.”
 Despite their disappointing team score, the Pioneers still managed a handful of strong individual results. Senior Courtney Arno-Templet (pictured) won the individual event titles on both bars (9.825) and beam (9.675). Freshman Kristie Costa tied for second on beam (9.650) and freshman Mollie Blessing had the fourth-best vault of the night (9.775).
“I’m very happy for Courtney, Kristie, and Mollie,” said Kudlac. “All three of them stayed focused and delivered big scores for us. I was pleased to see a few of our TWU gymnasts up on the podium at the end of the night.”
The Pioneers’ next team competition will be the 2008 USA Gymnastics (USAG) Collegiate Women’s National Championships beginning on Thursday, April 17.
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