WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The Frostburg State acrobatics and tumbling team posted narrow wins in all six events here Saturday but they added up to a clutch win for the Bobcats as they crashed West Liberty's Senior Day party with a 258.820-247.915 victory before a large crowd inside the ASRC.
    Frostburg's winning score of 258.820 in the mutual regular season finale was one of the highest in the brief history of the second-year program and pulled the Bobcats (5-4, 4-2) into a tie with Coach Kelsey Kyle's Hilltoppers (4-4, 4-2) for second place in the Mountain East Conference standings.
    Injuries and illness coming out of last week's road loss at Fairmont State forced Kyle to make numerous changes and adjustments in her lineups and skills coming into Saturday's meet but the WLU head coach refused to use that as an excuse.
    "I think we had to make changes in 16 of the 20 heats this week," Kyle said. "We made adjustments in the individuals we had in the groups or the skills they were performing. Obviously, that's not what you want to be doing at this stage of the season but I'm incredibly proud of the way our team came together and rallied around each other. Considering the quick turnaround time, I thought we performed really well with minimum mistakes. Give credit to Frostburg State. They were excellent today."
    The Bobcats won three of the four heats in the Compulsory Event, highlighted by a 9.70 score in the pyramid heat, to take a 35.10-34.60 lead into the Acro Event. West Liberty won the first two heats in Acro but a missed skill in the third heat left the door open for Frostburg to pull out a 28.50-27.25 win in the Acro Event.
    The visitors made it three-for-three, closing out the first half with a sweep of all three heats in the Pyramid Event. The Hilltoppers posted a respectable total of 27.65 with all three heats scoring 9.00 or higher but Frostburg responded with a 29.00 score off a 30.00 start value for the event, highlighted by identical 9.80 scores in the inversion and open heats.
    That sent the Bobcats into halftime with a 92.60-89.50 lead. While it wasn't a huge margin, Kyle said the visitors made it very difficult for the Hilltoppers to chip away at the lead.
    "Frostburg just executed very well in all six events today," Kyle said. "Even though they didn't have a really big lead, they never made that one big mistake that would have given us a chance to make up a lot of ground quickly."
    The Bobcats continued to put up solid performance after solid performance when the teams returned to the mats for the second half. Frostburg won all three heats of the Toss Event, capped by an impressive 9.60 in the open heat, to win their fourth event by a 26.60-25.40 margin. That put FSU on top, 119.20-114.90 with the all-important Tumbling Event up next.
    Once again, Frostburg's formula for success paid off as the Bobcats won five of the six heats and tied the other for a 52.55-49.725 decision in the Tumbling Event. Not an overwhelming margin but combined with the wins in the previous four events, it left West Liberty with a virtually insurmountable 171.750-164.625 mountain to climb in the Team Event. The short-handed Hilltoppers delivered a solid performance but Frostburg did enough to wrap up the match with an 87.07-83.29 win in Team.
    "I'm proud of all the girls for the way they stepped up for the team today," Kyle said, "and I'm especially proud of a couple of freshmen, Katie Emborsky and Gillian Hartz. They were both thrown into the fire, competing in a number of events they had never competed in before and they really came through for us."
    West Liberty conducted its Senior Day ceremonies while the officials were compiling the scores from the Team Event. Now in its fifth season of competition, the Hilltoppers bid a fond farewell to 10 seniors – Kenzie Kyle, Tianna Meyer, Abbey Bauer, Maddie Estep, Jenna Mankowski, Paige McGlothlin, Theresa Evangelista, Lexus Ficca, Sydney Schumacher and Laci Growe – at the final home match of their career.
    "Just an awesome group of young women," Kyle said. "Some of them were here when I got here, some came in with me and some have only been here for a couple of years but they're the ones who took this program from Ground Zero to where we are now, drawing national recognition and competing for conference championships. They will always be super special to me."
    With their 4-2 conference records, West Liberty and Frostburg have locked up two of the four spots in next week's Mountain East Conference Tournament. Ranked No. 8 in the country, host Fairmont State clinched the No. 1 seed with its win at Glenville State on Friday night but the other three seeds can't be decided until Monday's final MEC regular season match between West Virginia Wesleyan (3-2, 3-2) and Davis & Elkins (3-4, 2-3).
    "All I know is you have to be in the tournament to have a chance to win it and we're in," Kyle said. "We put up some big scores earlier this season but I don't think we've peaked yet. I told the girls today that if it takes us until we get to the MEC Tournament to hit our peak, we timed it just right. Hopefully, we'll be back at full strength by then and we'll take a run at whoever they put in front of us."