Acrobatics & Tumbling | 2/15/2020 8:00:00 PM

WLU-FSU Acrobatics & Tumbling Score Sheet

    FAIRMONT, W.Va. – Defending Mountain East Conference champion Fairmont State flexed its nationally-ranked muscles here Saturday to hold off upset-minded West Liberty in a battle between two of the MEC's top Acrobatics & Tumbling squads at Joe Retton Arena.
    Coach Kelsey Kyle's youthful Hilltoppers (1-1, 1-1) just missed breaking their own school single-meet scoring record with a solid effort but it wasn't enough as the host Falcons (1-0, 1-0), ranked No. 7 in the NCATA preseason coaches' poll, impressed with a 269.385-253.775 victory.
    "Obviously, today's result wasn't the outcome we were hoping for," said Kyle, a former All-MEC standout with the Fairmont State program. "Give credit to Coach (Kristi) Kiefer and her student-athletes. I thought Fairmont had a really strong meet."
    West Liberty opened the meet with strong scores of 9.4 in the Compulsory pyramid heat and 9.65 in Compulsory toss but the Falcons hung up scores of 9.8 and 9.75 respectively in those two heats to fuel a 36.80-34.30 win in the Compulsory event.
    The Hilltoppers beat their previous high in the Acro event by nearly a full point with a 27.30 total for the three heats but the Falcons were still able to pad their overall lead with a 28.45 total.
    In the Pyramid event, West Liberty won the inversion heat with a school-record 9.8 only to see FSU post scores of 9.75 in the synch head and 9.9 in the open to win the Pyramid event, 28.90-28.10.
    That allowed Fairmont to take a 94.15-89.70 lead into halftime and the hosts continued to slowly pull away over the final three events with strong performances in each event.
    The Hilltoppers' final total of 253.775 was less than a point shy of the school record 254.570 posted a week ago in the season opener against West Virginia Wesleyan.
    While she was admittedly disappointed by Saturday's result, Kyle believes her team will benefit from the experience in the long run.
    "First of all, we still had some great events," Kyle said. "We had the school record in the inversion pyramid and also showed improvement over our first meet in several other events. We made a few mistakes we normally don't make but I'm pretty confident we'll be able to get those corrected before our next meet."
    The Hilltoppers will have a couple of weeks to prepare for their next outing, which is set for Feb. 29 when Glenville State invades the ASRC for a 6 p.m. MEC clash.