It was going as well as the Cyclones could have expected during Saturday night’s NCAA North Central Regional Women’s Gymnastics Championship.

After two rotations, Iowa State (20-4) headed into its third rotation bye with the lead, satisfied after earning scores of 49.350 on floor exercise and 49.075 on vault.

“We did start out on fire,” said coach K.J. Kindler, North Central Region coach of the year. “We had a great floor performance, definitely one of the best of the year at home and vault went fairly well, but I think we’re better than that, but it was good enough.”

However, Arizona State, Arizona, Minnesota and Denver all trailed closely behind. As Iowa State soon discovered, the competition was a little too close for comfort.

“And then, I really don’t have a lot of answers for you,” Kindler said. “[We had] one of our poorest and most disappointing performances on bars of the year.”

Usually strong on uneven bars, the Cyclones began the fourth rotation with uncharacteristic struggles.

“The first three athletes were very tight and when we started off like that, the people behind them felt a little bit more pressure,” Kindler said.

After beginning the rotation with three lower-than-average scores, junior Katie Lasher nailed a season-high score of 9.875 to give the Cyclones some breathing room.

Junior Janet Anson was up next. After strong performances on vault and floor exercise earned her the North Central Region championship in each event, she made a crucial error and fell when landing her dismount, her first fall on any event of the year.

“I was really mad and really disappointed that I didn’t put a good performance out,” Anson said.

Senior Erin Dethloff was the final Cyclone performer on bars. With the weight of the team on her shoulders, she knew she had to pull off an excellent performance, and she delivered. Dethloff nailed all facets of her routine to earn a 9.900, which tied her for the North Central Region championship on uneven bars.

“Coming off Janet [Anson]’s fall and having the pressure to put on a good routine, I think I handled the pressure really well,” Dethloff said.

When all the scores were totaled up, Iowa State had earned a 48.750 on bars, its third-lowest score of the year.

After four rotations, Arizona State was ahead of the pack, with a total score of 147.475, .300 ahead of second-place Iowa State’s 147.175.

Going into the fifth rotation, the Cyclones knew they needed to have one of their best balance beam performances of the year in order to win the meet. Normally fantastic under pressure, Iowa State uncharacteristically faltered on beam, much like on bars before it.

“If we would have hit bars, I believe beam would have been smoother,” Kindler said. “They definitely felt tremendous weight and on 4 inches, that’s a lot of weight.”

After starting very strong with four 9.800 or higher scores, junior Ashley Alden and senior Laura-Kay Powell recorded their lowest scores of the season on beam after they both fell during their routines, to the surprise of Kindler.

“It was very uncharacteristic of us because we haven’t had a counter fall since January,” she said.

When all was said and done, the Cyclones recorded a 48.550 on beam, their second-lowest score of the year.

With Iowa State having a sixth rotation bye and Arizona State having first place all but locked up, the Cyclones had to nervously wait to see their fate.

With Arizona and Minnesota both needing reachable scores to defeat the Cyclones and take the second-place finish that came with a berth at Nationals, Iowa State fans could only hold their breath and hope that the Wildcats and Golden Gophers would make a mistake.

Those hopes were answered. Minnesota recorded three critical falls on the uneven bars and Arizona suffered from wobbles on beam.

“Minnesota basically had the meet, and then made a couple of mistakes,” Kindler said.

“We had some very uncharacteristic and disappointing performances at home, but we made it, so I guess we just don’t look back now.”

Despite the rough showing to finish the meet, the 3,214 fans in attendance erupted on learning that Iowa State had qualified for its second consecutive trip to Nationals.

“Today I think the team and I felt very blessed at the end of the meet that it did fall our way,” Kindler said.

“We wish that we had earned it a little more than we did. We’re going to take as much out of this as we can and train as hard as we can to do the best we can at Nationals.”

The NCAA National Women’s Gymnastics Championship will be April 20 to 22 in Corvallis, Ore.

NCAA North Central Women’s Gymnastics Regional Results

1. Arizona State – 196.675

2. Iowa State – 195.725

3. Arizona – 195.400

4. Denver – 195.250

5. Minnesota – 194.675

6. Brigham Young – 192.125

Arizona State and Iowa State qualify for the NCAA National Championships, April 20 to 22 in Corvallis, Ore.