It was a tale of two rotations Friday night at Hilton Coliseum, as the 9th-ranked ISU gymnastics team stormed out to a 97.95 to 96.525 lead over Bringham Young University.

Entering the third rotation, the Cyclones headed for the balance beam, and that’s where the trouble began.

After sophomore Jessy Smith carded an eventual second-place score of 9.75, falls by three ISU gymnasts, including senior Kelli More, who was ranked third in the nation on the beam entering the meet, switched the momentum in favor of the Cougars.

BYU took the meet, on the strength of three top three finishes from senior Denice Pauga, scoring 194.175 to Iowa State’s 193.975. Naturally, it was a tough loss for the team, coach Amy Pyle said, but the team did not come through when it counted on beam or on floor, leaving her frustrated for the second straight week.

“They had the meet in the bag and, even after a poor beam performance, their floor is so strong. It’s our best event, and we didn’t shine,” Pyle said. “We are making mistakes that we should not be making right now. It’s very frustrating from a coaching standpoint.”

Pyle said after Smith’s beam routine, she was confident that her team would rise to the occasion.

However, a fall by More and an accident by sophomore Sissy Huey hurt the Cyclones’ scores.

“We started out strong, and I changed the lineup on beam a little bit and felt very comfortable about it. Jessy [Smith] was the person I put in and took somebody else out and she hit,” Pyle said. And then Kelli More, I think, has fallen twice on that event her entire season and that was a shock.

“Sissy…her foot was barely on the beam and her big toe…she just split it open. She’s back there getting stitched up right now. You can see the tendon. It was awful, very strange. It’s beam…they’ll hit in practice and look good. This was so uncharacteristic.”

As Pyle said, Huey had her foot stitched up, which did cause her to miss the all-around competition.

Pyle wasn’t sure of Huey’s status after the meet.

Despite the loss, the Cyclones did take home their share of top finishes.

Junior Betsy Hamm was the top all-around gymnast at the meet, carding a 39.225. She tied for first on the floor exercise with a 9.875 and took second on the uneven bars with a 9.85.

Huey tied a career high with a first-place score on the uneven bars of 9.90. Sophomore Shelly Kringen took first on the vault with a career high 9.90 and senior Sarah Sanderson finished third on the vault with a 9.825.

With her confidence surging after her 9.90 showing on the vault, Kringen said she felt very good about the Cyclones’ chances of winning. Nevertheless, mistakes caught up with the Cyclones, mistakes that Kringen said can be corrected.

“We had a few mistakes, but we’ll definitely correct them next time,” Kringen said. “We had a lot of problems on beam, and when we came to floor, the problems came with us. Next time if we have problems we’ll just have to brush them off and move on.”

After the loss, which takes the Cyclones to 1-2 overall (1-1 in conference), More was searching for answers to the loss.

“I don’t even know what to say…beam and floor we’ve been struggling with this year, and we need to figure out what we need to do to make it right, whether that’s train harder or train differently,” More said. “I don’t know the answer just yet. We do it in the gym, but we need to figure out how to do it in the arena.”

Pyle said that those who carded high scores did a nice job for the team against BYU, but the team must still regroup and focus on next week’s meet, which is Friday night against Minnesota.

“This was a big disappointment and it will really hurt our rankings. We just need to regroup and refocus and work on some things that we haven’t been working on and put this meet behind us.”

For More, finding solutions to the problems plaguing her team is not easy, though she seems to believe it’s more of a mental concentration problem than a physical problem.

“They’re [Minnesota] big rivals, so we need to get our act together,” More said. “I think, mentally, we just need to pull together because we have the physical ability, there’s no doubt about that. It’s mental, that’s all it is, because it’s not physical anymore.”