The unofficial online home for fans of the Kent State University Golden Flashes. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Here’s my yearly gymnastics team post. The MAC Tournament is at Kent Saturday at 2:00 PM. It’s a pretty impressive event (or at least was both 7 and 14 years ago). The amount of Kent alumni who come back seems to beat any other sport. They fill about a section and a half on the upper level (can’t sit in the lower bowl as they need the entire floor to fit 7 teams). I’ve attended meets since the mid 1980’s and I see some alumni going back that far.

The team has become middle of the road in the MAC (3-3 this year). The days of Kent vs. CMU for the regular season championship seem to be gone. Rest of the league caught up. For some reason our average score has continued to go up but 195.500 used to be good for 25 to 30 in the country has now become 195.800 and 42nd in the country (36 teams make the NCAA). I have no idea why scores have gone up but ours have gone up less but that’s the way it is. There has been an influx of ex Olympians but they are on teams that always finished ahead of us anyway. Mostly SEC teams, UCLA, Oklahoma, Michigan and Utah. I communicated with the coach and he couldn’t explain it either. For the statisticians if you plot score vs placing for the last 15 years it correlates very well until the last 2 years. Those 2 points are so far off the line it’s really weird. Someday I’ll figure it out.

Anyway it’s pretty entertaining and only costs $10.

Kent 200.100
Everyone else <195

I agree; gymnastics is a fascinating sport to watch in person.

(03-14-2023 08:50 PM)bopol Wrote:  Kent 200.100
Everyone else <195

I agree; gymnastics is a fascinating sport to watch in person.

Come on isnt everyone else -5?

(03-14-2023 09:08 PM)thanksjim Wrote:  

(03-14-2023 08:50 PM)bopol Wrote:  Kent 200.100
Everyone else <195

I agree; gymnastics is a fascinating sport to watch in person.

Come on isnt everyone else -5?

I see you don't know how scoring works in gymnastics. Besides, I put in a joke in my score, but this one's a little more hidden than my usual obnoxiousness in the basketball threads.

(03-14-2023 10:05 PM)bopol Wrote:  

(03-14-2023 09:08 PM)thanksjim Wrote:  

(03-14-2023 08:50 PM)bopol Wrote:  Kent 200.100
Everyone else <195

I agree; gymnastics is a fascinating sport to watch in person.

Come on isnt everyone else -5?

I see you don't know how scoring works in gymnastics. Besides, I put in a joke in my score, but this one's a little more hidden than my usual obnoxiousness in the basketball threads.

I caught it.

(03-15-2023 06:59 AM)burden Wrote:  

(03-14-2023 10:05 PM)bopol Wrote:  

(03-14-2023 09:08 PM)thanksjim Wrote:  

(03-14-2023 08:50 PM)bopol Wrote:  Kent 200.100
Everyone else <195

I agree; gymnastics is a fascinating sport to watch in person.

Come on isnt everyone else -5?

I see you don't know how scoring works in gymnastics. Besides, I put in a joke in my score, but this one's a little more hidden than my usual obnoxiousness in the basketball threads.

I caught it.

That roster is interesting. Seems like it covers quite an area including but not limited to Rhode Island, Michigan, Georgia and Indiana. My first stops would be to Brecksville and Magnificat High Schools here in NE Ohio. Some of the best athletes in the midwest can be found in those halls.

(03-15-2023 10:00 AM)fallsdog Wrote:  That roster is interesting. Seems like it covers quite an area including but not limited to Rhode Island, Michigan, Georgia and Indiana. My first stops would be to Brecksville and Magnificat High Schools here in NE Ohio. Some of the best athletes in the midwest can be found in those halls.

So, Brecksville for wrestling and gymnastics?

Well. I think their gymnastics team just won their 18th consecutive State Title and recently had a 700+ match winning streak snapped. They are unreal.

The wrestling is among the top publics in the state. They, along with Wadsworth, Perry and Graham are the only ones who can challenge the AAU team from Lakewood.

(03-15-2023 11:39 AM)fallsdog Wrote:  Well. I think their gymnastics team just won their 18th consecutive State Title and recently had a 700+ match winning streak snapped. They are unreal.

The wrestling is among the top publics in the state. They, along with Wadsworth, Perry and Graham are the only ones who can challenge the AAU team from Lakewood.

The Brecksville program is run by The Ganim family. They’re all KSU alums and have sent a number of their gymnast to Kent over the years. Cristina Lenny comes to mind. I don’t know much about Gymnastics but I see that quite a few Ohio stars don’t do much in college.

(03-15-2023 10:00 AM)fallsdog Wrote:  That roster is interesting. Seems like it covers quite an area including but not limited to Rhode Island, Michigan, Georgia and Indiana. My first stops would be to Brecksville and Magnificat High Schools here in NE Ohio. Some of the best athletes in the midwest can be found in those halls.

They do. As mentioned Christina Lenny was one of the best (if not the best) to go to Kent. One of her teammates also came from Brecksville. There are only about 60 DI schools so you pretty much have to look everywhere to get 20 athletes. Also High School Gymnastics really don’t mean much. The recruits come from private gyms (one of the best in this area just happens to be in Brecksville).

The gym is actually in Broadview Hts.

The good news is we had our best score of the year at 196.175 (better than 9.800 average on all 20 scores). Also we might have had our best bars score ever. Haven’t had time to check but it has to be close. Scored 49.450 or 9.890 per event. The bad news is 2 gymnasts fell off the beam and we had to count one. That 0.500 point cost us the meet. Ironically our other 4 beam scores were better then they had been all year but it’s pretty much impossible to make up for a 0.500 deduction. Can’t score 11.000’s.

CMU scored 196.525 and Ball St finished 2nd at 196.325. Oh well. To make matters worse senior Rachel DeCavitch had a 39.450 all- around score losing to Hannah Demers of guess who (CMU) by 0.025 points. Oh well again.

This was the first time Kent didn’t win a MAC Tournament championship at home. Still will be short of qualifying for NCAA. Our score improved but not enough to get to 36th. Great crowd as every school brought a pretty good group. Besides the obvious Kent crowd EMU, CMU, BGSU and Ball St. had solid numbers. My guess overall was 2000-2500. Just a guess.

(03-15-2023 10:00 AM)fallsdog Wrote:  That roster is interesting. Seems like it covers quite an area including but not limited to Rhode Island, Michigan, Georgia and Indiana. My first stops would be to Brecksville and Magnificat High Schools here in NE Ohio. Some of the best athletes in the midwest can be found in those halls.

Out of curiosity I checked the CMU roster since historically they have been as good as Kent. Five from Michigan, 2 from Illinois and New York and 1 each from Ohio, Vermont, Pa, Georgia, North Dakota, Texas, Indiana, Iowa , Florida, Manitoba and Costa Rica. Pretty widespread in its own right.

It is amazing to me how it can come downs to beams. Avoiding that second fall off the beams might be one of the most unnerving things in all college sports. You have to do spectacularly difficult moves knowing that the smallest slip will highly penalize your team. This ain't a free throw or a PAT with the game on the line!

Yeah especially at our level of gymnastics. Today the first 2 women fell and then the last four were great. The pressure was off then. You just cannot make it up unless the other team returns the favor. A half a point is like 4 touchdowns.