The Iowa State gymnastics team faced off in two multiple team meets over the weekend. Starting Friday, Iowa State headed over to DeKalb, Illinois, to compete against Northern Illinois and Illinois State. 

The Cyclones scored their season high in the meet and beat both teams reigning from Illinois. The final score was 196.575 for the Cyclones in the meet, which topped 195.575 from Northern Illinois and 194.650 from Illinois State.

The double win Friday pushed the Cyclones to 2-0 on the weekend, 3-0 on the week and 5-2 on the season (3-1 Big 12).

De Jesus sets the tone for teammates

Addy De Jesus dominated for the Cyclones, setting career highs on the beam (9.875), the bars (9.925) and in the all-around (39.575). Her all-around score was good enough to tie for fifth place all time in Iowa State history. 

The record-setting day for De Jesus was surrounded by career days for many of her teammates. Meixi Semple and Phoebe Turner also reached career highs in the beam event, with Semple scoring a team-leading 9.900 and Turner scoring a 9.875, matching De Jesus.

On the uneven bars, Loganne Basuel joined De Jesus in the career-high category, setting her own personal best with a 9.900.

On the floor exercise, Maddie Diab, Kelsey Boychuk and Turner all either tied or set a new season high. Diab tied her season high with a 9.900 and won the event. Boychuk tied her career high with a score of 9.825, while Turner reached her second career high of the evening with a 9.750.

Horowitz headlines Sunday’s performers

Moving into Sunday’s action with some heavy momentum, the Cyclones headed to Ypsilanti, Michigan, for the Eastern Michigan Quad meet. There they took on Eastern Michigan University, Bowling Green University and Air Force.

Once again the Cyclones swept the event, moving to 5-0 on the weekend and 8-2 overall (3-1 Big 12). Their score of 195.975 topped Eastern Michigan (194.450), Bowling Green (194.300) and Air Force (192.200).

Natalie Horowitz shared the event win on the beam exercise in her first career performance on the event. Her 9.875 tied Semple, as the teammates shared the event victory.

De Jesus, Diab and Makayla Maxwell each picked up event wins Sunday as well. De Jesus grabbed the event win on the all-around with a 39.200, Diab won the floor event with a score of 9.875 and Maxwell’s 9.925 was enough to take home the event win on the vault.

Cyclones stay hot

While the quad meet was not as high scoring and record breaking as the tri-meet Friday and the win against West Virginia on Monday, the Cyclones kept their winning ways alive as they move their newly acquired winning streak to six games.

After such strong showings over the past week, Iowa State moved back into the top 25. The Cyclones show up at No. 23 entering the last week of the regular season. 

The Cyclones return to Ames as they are scheduled to face off with Northern Illinois at 6:30 p.m. Friday. After facing the familiar foes, the Cyclones will have their hands full with No. 1 Oklahoma coming to town Sunday and beginning at noon.