Southeast Missouri State gymnasts win season-opening meet

Perfection wasn't expected in the Southeast Missouri State gymnastics squad's season opener Sunday.

The expectations were for the Redhawks to keep pushing through even when they made mistakes.

The expected happened -- Southeast wavered occasionally, but never fell -- and the Redhawks started their season with a 193.275-186.650 win against Midwest Independent Conference foe Illinois State at Houck Field House.

"This team has worked hard, and even had little blips here and there tonight, but like I said before, they're a fighting team, and they really showed that we're not going to give up, even with little things here and there that go wrong," Southeast coach Kristi Ewasko said. "I'm really happy with where we're at. We've got a few things that we can improve upon, and we'll really look to do that before next week. But we'll walk away tonight really celebrating what we did today."

Southeast led by three points after the first rotation. The Redhawks posted a 48.150 on the vault behind a score of 9.775 from freshman Alexis Brawner, who won the event. Sophomores Ashley Thomas and Alyssa Tucker joined Brawner in the top three.

Meanwhile the Cardinals scored 45.150 as they struggled on the uneven bars to start the meet.

The Redhawks moved onto bars where they scored a 48.500.

"Just little things like handstands on bars, landings on bars, landings on beam, pointed toes -- all the cliche things that they tell us in the gym we need to fix because those are easy points right there," Thomas said.

Tucker's 9.750 won the event. Thomas, who had never competed on bars at Southeast besides in exhibition, finished in a three-way tie for second place with teammates Chelsi Hamilton and Lauren Israel with a score of 9.700.

"Today competing bars was really fun," Thomas said. "I didn't know what to expect score-wise, just because intersquads are fun and all, but you don't get the real deal until you're against the other team, the real judges."

The Redhawks moved onto the balance beam for their third rotation, an area where they struggled with consistency last season, and posted a 48.000.

ISU claimed its only individual title of the day with a 9.750 from Sami King.

Thomas and Tucker were second and third with scores of 9.725 and 9.765, respectively.

Thomas and senior Erin Brady posted scores of 9.800 on floor exercise to conclude the meet and tied for first in the event.

Thomas and Tucker finished one-two in the all-around competition. Thomas finished the day with a 38.925 in her first time competing all-around as a Redhawk. Tucker, who advanced to an NCAA Regional as an individual in the all-around as a freshman, posted a score of 38.850.

"I think they're going to be that foundation for this team this year," Ewasko said. "Even as sophomores the skills are there, the talent's there, the commitment's there, and I think they're just going to create that foundation every single meet, in and out, that everyone else can really build upon."

Southeast had three freshmen compete in their first collegiate meet, with Brawner winning her lone event. McKenna Stanley competed on bars and Jordan Clark competed in vault and floor.

"All of our freshmen struggled tonight, and you could see it. There was little blips here and there that as a coach [I haven't seen] happen in practice, but not a single one of them gave up," Ewasko said. "There wasn't a fall because of those issues, so I was really excited to see that and know that really we can only get better from here just fixing those little things."

Southeast travels to Ames, Iowa, for a meet against Iowa State and Oregon State on Sunday, and Ewasko is confident the Redhawks will clean up the small mistakes she saw in the opener.

"It's not learning new skills or anything like that, it's simply finessing what we have," Ewasko said. "It's exciting for that to be the issue, the only problem to really focus on now."