In gymnastics, a sport that is sometimes more mentally challenging than anything, gymnasts have to eliminate fear when it comes performance time. In the Cyclones meet against the Hawkeyes on Thursday night, it was mental mistakes that kept them from performing the way they had hoped.

“This sport is very much in your head,” said head coach Jay Ronayne. “When fear enters your mind weird things happen; you fall off the beam.”

In the third rotation of the meet the Cyclones had an uncharacteristic beam performance, scoring a season low 47.625 on the event. Ceilia Maccani fell when mounting the beam, while Jody McKellar found herself on the floor midway through her beam routine. Jasmine Thompson also took a fall during her performance on beam.

“I think everybody has their off night, and for individuals that could have been it,” said junior Megan Barnes. “We are trying to learn to keep our confidence up as we go so all we can do is take what we did tonight and learn from it and improve for the next time.”

The Cyclones started off the first rotation on vault while the Hawkeyes began on the uneven bars. Maccani started Iowa State off on a high note, with a season high for the Cyclone of 9.825.

Iowa State finished with 48.775 on vault to take an early lead while the Hawkeyes posted 48.725 on the uneven bars.

In the second rotation the teams swapped places as the Cyclones competed on bars and Iowa performed on vault.

Thompson led Iowa State with 9.775 on bars, and the Cyclones finished with 48.600 while the Hawkeyes notched 48.825.

The Hawkeyes’ performance on vault put them in the lead at the halfway point of the meet 97.550-97.375. Iowa was led by Annie Szatkowski who posted a 9.825 on vault.

The Hawkeyes found the floor in rotation three with a score of 49.025 to extend the lead 146.575-144.975 after Iowa State’s dismal beam routines.

Although some Cyclones struggled for balance on the beam in the third event, senior Ashley Kent scored her season high 9.775 in the event. Barnes led the Cyclones with a 9.800 on beam.

After coming up short on the balance beam, the Cyclones huddled together to focus on the upcoming event. In the final rotation, Iowa State finished on floor and the Hawkeyes rounded out on beam.

“We come together after every event and just say what our goals are; and we know we can hit floor,” Thompson said. “We try to just get out there and tumble hard, tumble strong; be aggressive on everything.”

Although the Cyclones transferred from their worst scoring event of the night, to their highest score on floor, the floor performance Iowa State came up with still wasn’t the usual.

“It still wasn’t the floor that we expect from them,” Ronayne said. “We expect much more and I expect it on Monday.”

The Cyclones started off with errors on the floor, but came with stellar performances from Anna Robey, Michelle Browning and Thompson. Barnes stepped out of bounds as well as McKellar, and Melanie Tham took a fall during her a pass in her performance.

Despite mistakes from teammates, Robey beat her season high on floor, posting a 9.850. Browning tied her season high in the event with a whopping 9.900. Thompson came out with fierce performance to finish out the night for the Cyclones by scoring 9.800.

“We just need to be mentally tougher,” Ronayne said. “It wasn’t anything physical today.”

The final score in the Cy-Hawk series was 194.375-193.825. Monday the Cyclones face the Hawkeyes again, but this time on the road in Iowa City.