Kent State Stays on Top of the MAC with Room for Growth
- Alyssa Klauminzer
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Kent State gymnastics is off to a great start, and that's with a lot of room still to grow!
The Golden Flashes had one of their best scores to start the season. Last weekend, in their second meet, they hosted a tri-meet against West Virginia and Fisk, and already saw improvement in scores on vault, beam, and floor.
The Golden Flashes started the day on vault. Senior Zoe Rankin led off with a 9.700, followed by senior Avery Compson with a 9.725. Freshman Taylor Achambeau, in her NCAA debut, stuck her Yurchenko full and scored a 9.850. Junior Ashley Morgan followed with a 9.700. Sophomore Jersey Bingman and senior Charlie Behner followed in Achambeau’s footsteps, sticking their Yurchenko fulls, with Bingman scoring a 9.825 and Behner matching her career high of 9.900. The Golden Flashes scored their first 49.000 of the season.
After the first rotation, Kent State led by 0.575.
"Our lead off is so important," Morgan would go on to say in a post-meet press conference.
Bars wasn’t the strongest event for the Flashes, but they have plenty of room for growth. Junior Dani Fuertez and senior Mya Migliore started the rotation with back-to-back 9.700s. Then, sophomore Isabella Marques scored a 9.450, and senior Heidi Schultz scored a 9.650. Senior Nastia Rudnitskaya had the highest bars score of the day with a 9.800.
The Golden Flashes extended their lead to 2.325 at the halfway point.
Despite showing some nerves, Kent State improved on beam from last week. Rankin led off with a 9.650, Migliore followed with a 9.750, and junior Gabby Riley had a 9.550. The Flashes finished with strong back-to-back performances from Morgan and Schultz, who scored 9.800 and 9.850, respectively.
The Flashes had their biggest lead of the day with a 2.650 heading into the final rotation, and all they had to do was leave it all on the floor (literally).
Bingman and Rudnitskaya kicked off the final rotation with back-to-back 9.750s, giving the Flashes a solid start to build on. They then posted the best marks of the meet on floor, with Morgan scoring a 9.800, Rankin scoring a 9.850, and Behner anchoring with a 9.875.
Kent State won with a 194.925, West Virginia finished second with a 192.025, and Fisk finished third with a 188.975. The Golden Flashes won all four event titles, with Behner winning on vault and floor, Rudnitskaya winning on bars, and Schultz winning on beam.
Through the first three weeks of the 2026 season, Kent State remains on top of the Mid- American Conference (MAC), averaging a 195.138. Central Michigan is behind them with a 194.875 average, and Ball State is in third with a 194.750 average.
Kent State met the 195.000 mark, an average of 9.750 for each routine, in their first meet of the season. Their 195.350 was one of their best opening team scores ever, and their best since 2004. In their second meet, they hit the important 49.000 mark, an average of 9.800 for each routine, on vault and floor. Morgan expressed that getting a 49.000 early in the season is immensely important, and it gives them a great point to build upon, and Rudnitskaya added that it sets them up for a great season and will propel them in a good direction.
Despite these important marks, Kent State's meet didn't go as they hoped. But they know where they made mistakes and where they need to improve.
“I think this team has a lot of great potential, and today was a representation of what happens when we let our nerves take over us instead of relying on our training. We have to get back in the gym, find our roots again, and find out what works best for each athlete. That’s going to help the team in the end,” Rudnitskaya said.
Head coach Brice Biggin spoke on the importance of responding to mistakes: “Last week, everything went kind of, you hate to say easy, but in a way it did: everyone set each other up, they hit routine after routine. We had to work a little bit harder this week. We had some mistakes, we had a couple of falls, so you saw resilience in the team that we need to be able to see. Things aren’t going to be perfect every week, and we understand that, but being able to bounce back and come back from mistakes, that’s the thing we saw from the team [today]: they bounced back and did some really good floor routines."
It's only up from here for the Flashes. They are off to a solid start and have room to grow, and know what they need to learn from and improve upon. The fine-tuning they work on now will take them far this season.
“I want them to continue to trust their training and continue to push each other because we have a very friendly but intense group that wants to compete. There are 24 girls, but only six spots that compete on each event; it’s really difficult to get into a lineup. They have to understand we do it for one reason, and we do it because we want our team to be the best we can be," Biggin said.
Rudnitskaya shared the goals for the Golden Flashes this season: "We want to make it to regionals, we want to win MACs, and we want to be regular season champions. That doesn’t happen if we’re not pushing each other to be our best. And if each of us is individually pushing each other, that’s how we’re going to get the best team possible.”
Kent State heads into four meets on the road, first with a quad meet against Air Force, Boise State, and conference rival Eastern Michigan on January 23.
Edited by: Kelly Cassette