COLUMBIA, Mo. – The Big 12 Gymnastics Championship didn’t go the way any member of the ISU gymnastics team expected. Not by a long shot.

Only a week after posting scores of 49 or higher in every event on Mar. 23, the 15th-ranked and defending Big 12 champion Cyclones (12-8) failed to reach a score of 49 or higher in any event against their Big 12 peers Saturday night. On the heels of three scores in the 48s and one in the 47s, Iowa State finished fourth out of the four Big 12 gymnastics teams with a season-low 193.975 – a far cry from the championship hopes the Cyclones brought into the Hearnes Center.

“It is disappointing,” said ISU gymnastics coach Jay Ronayne. “You come in and have hopes and expectations of a certain level of performance. Of course it’s the lowest score of the year, but I’d rather it happen now then at regionals, when it really matters.”

Seventh-ranked Nebraska (19-4) won its eighth conference championship after a dominant performance, scoring a 196.475, more than a full point ahead of No. 10 Oklahoma’s (15-3) score of 195.325. Despite a furious run at earning the runner-up position, host team No. 18 Missouri (14-9) finished in third place with a 194.450 after struggling on floor exercise in the final rotation.

For Iowa State, problems arose from the beginning. Surprisingly, two of the Cyclones typically solid trio of seniors on balance beam struggled mightily in the first rotation, with Jade Kvach falling off the beam and Ashley Alden narrowly avoiding the same fate. The Cyclones finished with a 48.400, the second-lowest beam score of the season.

The second and third rotations proved to be more positive for the Cyclones on floor exercise (48.800) and vault (48.875), but Iowa State’s effort on uneven bars in the final rotation lead to a score of 47.900, the lowest score of the season in any event. Multiple falls by sophomore Jasmine Thompson and freshman Melanie Tham forced the Cyclones to have to count two falls on bars, which proved to be devastating.

Thompson and Tham’s teammates and coaches chalk up their struggles on bars to be nothing more than a freak incident.

“I think it was very much a fluke,” said senior Janet Anson. “I haven’t seen those two do that ever, so it was surprising, but I have total confidence in them that they’ll come back and hit perfect routines the next time.”

Ronayne agreed that Iowa State’s issues on bars were a complete fluke, while noting that occasional problems on beam are bound to happen given the difficulty of the event.

“Bars was just an anomaly. I’m not concerned that this will happen again,” Ronayne said. “Beam is beam. It can sneak up and bite you once in a while.”

With so many unusual errors throughout the meet, Ronayne was at a loss at what to attribute to Iowa State’s low-scoring performance, but noted that a chain reaction of errors is known to happen on occasion in gymnastics.

“If somebody starts losing their composure, sometimes it will affect the next competitor or the one after that or the one after that,” he said. “So, my charge to them was to take this and use it as a learning experience.”

Ronayne and his staff plan to make some adjustments in practice this week, but believe Saturday’s experience was humbling enough for the gymnasts to enact some positive changes heading into NCAA Regionals in two weeks. On Monday, the Cyclones find out at which of the six regional meets they’ll be competing.

“I’m going to make a few alterations to our plan, but I think just the shear pride-crushing is going to do some wonders. There’s not much that we’ll [the coaching staff] have to do. I think a lot of things will take care of themselves.”