Women's Gymnastics To Compete At The Big Ten Championships
3/15/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Gymnastics
March 15, 2000
EAST LANSING, Mich. - The 23rd ranked Michigan State women's gymnastics team (16-10 overall, 1-4 Big Ten) will travel to State College, Pa., for the Big Ten Championships on Saturday, March 18 at 6 p.m. The Spartans will compete against the defending champions-No. 1 Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, No. 17 Minnesota, Ohio State and No. 15 Penn State.
Michigan State finished sixth (191.600) out of seven teams at last year's Big Ten Championships with only seven healthy gymnasts. This year, a healthy MSU squad looks to improve on that finish.
The Spartans will be led by Melissa Green (Jr., East Lansing, Mich.), who has tied the school records on bars (9.975) and the floor exercise (9.975) and also had the second best all-around score in school history (39.400). Polly Kiker (Sr., Englewood, Colo.) tied the floor exercise record with a 9.975 last week and hit the fourth-best beam score (9.900).
The highest score that MSU has achieved at the Big Ten Championships was in 1997 at Minnesota with a 195.475, finishing fourth.
As a team, the Spartans moved up three notches to 23rd (193.567) in the national rankings this week and are 18th on the uneven bars with an RQS of 48.687. Individually, Green is tied for 11th on the uneven bars (9.905) and Kiker is tied for 23rd on the floor exercise (9.697).
Green has the Spartans' highest scores, all of which are career highs, in the all-around (39.400) and the uneven bars (9.975). Kiker and Green are tied for first on the floor exercise (9.975) and the beam (9.900), both scores are career highs for the athletes. Elisabeth Forshier (Jr., South St. Paul, Minn.) owns the vault high score with a career-best score of 9.900.