Friday night, ISU gymnastics coach Jay Ronayne finally saw more of what he’s been looking for.

Despite uncharacteristic struggles on vault to open the meet, No. 11 Iowa State (5-1) swept the final three events to down No. 20 Missouri (2-7), 195.725 – 195.025, earning a season-high team score in the process.

Six Cyclones combined to win four individual event titles and senior Janet Anson took the all-around title for the third time this season.

With the recent losses of balance beam specialists Ashley Kent and Ashley Alden to leg injuries, a number of younger faces were forced to step up for the Cyclones and the beam lineup had to be completely revamped.

The re-tooling, however, proved effective, as evident by the score of 49.125 Iowa State earned on beam.

“The beam lineup did great,” said Anson, who tied with teammate Katie Sweetin for first place on balance beam and also won the floor exercise outright. “The girls who got put in for both of the Ashleys did a great job of just breathing through the routines and just going one skill at a time. They did an amazing job and I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Sweetin, a freshman who won the Mari-Rae Sopper Outstanding Gymnast award for her strong 9.875 beam performance, pointed out both she and her young teammates knew the pressure was on them.

“With all the injuries, all the freshmen definitely had to step up and do our job,” she said. “We knew we could do it, we just had to let ourselves do it and have confidence.”

With only three seniors competing, the rest of Iowa State’s lineup featured two sophomores and five freshmen. Ronayne and his team point to the performances of Iowa State’s underclassman gymnasts as being a huge factor in the Cyclones success against the Tigers.

“These are very talented kids,” Ronayne said about the freshmen. “They’re highly recruited, so there’s no reason they shouldn’t be doing this. They’re out there performing the way we expected them when they were being recruited.”

One of these freshman is Melanie Tham, who made her collegiate debut on beam against the Tigers. The Mississauga, Ontario, Canada native saw being inserted in the beam lineup as more than just helping her team deal with injuries.

“I saw it more as an opportunity to step up and show them what I can do,” she said. “I’ve known I could do it this whole time. I was really excited to do it – a little nervous, but mostly excited.”

Combine the high beam score with the 49.050, a season high, and 48.925 the Cyclones earned on uneven bars and floor exercise, respectively, and Ronayne couldn’t be much happier with how his team performed after a rough 48.625 start on vault.

“You get a little nervous when you’re a couple tenths down,” Ronayne said.

“We had a couple vaults that were uncharacteristic, they weren’t what we do in the gym, so it was a little concerning, but the bright note on it is that we knew we were gonna come back on bars.”

Iowa State now looks forward to heading to warmer weather this Friday when it competes in Stanford, Calif. Ronayne considers Friday’s season-best victory over Missouri as a stepping stone to continued success.

“We’re this close – and I have my hands pretty far apart – to where we need to be, ” he said.

“We’re this close and all we need to do is fix the little things. Football coaches say it all the time – ‘Eliminate mistakes’ – that’s exactly what we need to be doing.”