For ISU gymnastics coach Jay Ronayne, a rare finish at the NCAA Central Regional was all too familiar.

On Saturday, with host team Alabama taking first place with a score of 196.700, Oklahoma and Iowa State each earned a 195.925 to tie for second.

With five out of six scores on each rotation typically determining each team’s event score, NCAA rules state the sixth score on each event is counted in order to break a tie and determine who advances to the NCAA Championship. Sixteenth-ranked Iowa State (15-10) held a grand total of 233.200 – not enough to edge past Oklahoma’s total of 233.400.

With the top two finishers at each regional qualifying for Nationals, the tenth-ranked Sooners (18-5) join No. 3 Alabama (17-4) at the NCAA Championship in Salt Lake City on April 26 to 28. Iowa State, on the other hand, won’t be competing at the NCAA National Championship for the first time since the 2003-04 season.

“When I got the news [that we tied with Oklahoma], it brought back a little bit of a flashback,” Ronayne said. “It was five years ago when I was coaching at Auburn, at a Regional Championship at Tuscaloosa in the exact same gym. My team tied with Central Michigan. This was the first time anybody had ever run into this and they were like ‘What do we do?’ We go to the sixth score [on each event], and that night it tipped in my favor.”

As far as Ronayne is aware, a tie for second place has only happened twice at an NCAA Regional – both times involving teams he coached.

“I’m feel wholly responsible for this,” Ronayne said. “I jokingly told parents of our gymnasts that if this had never happened to me before, it probably would have been tipped in our favor because I used all my good karma up early.”

Though the team shares an overall feeling of disappointment for being so close to qualifying for Nationals and missing out on a technicality, Ronayne feels nothing but pride for his team’s performance, one of Iowa State’s strongest of the season.

“At first it was utter heartbreak because we did everything according to plan, we did everything right,” Ronayne said. “To have it come down to that close – you start blaming yourself. Every one of the athlete’s thinks back and says ‘If I had only done this, it would have tipped the difference,’ but they can’t take it personally.”

Senior Janet Anson, who tied for second place in the all-around at the Central Regional, will be the lone ISU representative at Nationals. Anson has experienced a tie once before in her career, but not at such an important meet.

“We tied Nebraska my freshman year [in a regular season meet], but it didn’t have to be broken so it just finished in a tie,” she said.

At Nationals, Anson will compete in each of the four events and will be eligible for the NCAA all-around championship. The Big 12 Co-Gymnast of the Year was also named NCAA North Central Region Gymnast of the Year on Saturday, and is a finalist for the American Award, which Ronayne likens to the “Heisman Trophy for gymnastics,” and goes to the nation’s top senior gymnast.

Despite being on the losing end of the tiebreaker in Tuscaloosa, Ronayne believes the current system for breaking ties is effective.

“I think it is fair because it rewards the more consistent team. The team that doesn’t have any mistakes should go,” Ronayne said. “In golf, sometimes you get a mulligan. We kind of get a mulligan in our sport. You have one routine that if somebody falls, it’s no big deal, until you’re in a [tiebreaker] situation like this and now it’s a big deal.”

As a result of the tiebreaker, former Cyclone coaches K.J. Kindler and Lou Ball will compete at their third-straight NCAA National Championship, their first as part of the Sooners coaching staff. Ronayne likens the irony of Kindler and Ball’s team being the one to edge out Iowa State as something not even found in movies, but only further develops the Oklahoma-Iowa State rivalry.

“We joked about it with K.J. and Lou afterward that if I had written this script, nobody would buy it because it’s too contrived,” Ronayne said. “No one would think it was plausible that this entire year would turn out this way.”

ISU coaches and teammates agree that despite the disappointment, they’d much rather lose in extremely close fashion than by a definitive margin.

“I’m happy it turned out like this because we made them sweat bullets,” freshman Nikki Dilbert said. “I mean, they were thinking ‘Oh man, what’s going to happen next?’ It could have turned out either way. I’m sure it will intensify the rivalry.”

Rounding out the Central Region finishers, No. 19 Michigan State (15-16) took fourth place with a 194.800, followed closely by No. 21 Ohio State’s (16-13) 194.650. No. 26 Kentucky (7-22) took sixth with a 194.025.