KALAMAZOO, Mich. - The Western Michigan gymnastics team travels to Ypsilanti, Mich., on Saturday for the 2022 Mid-American Conference Gymnastics Championships. The meet, featuring all seven league teams, is slated to begin at 2 pm and can be seen live on
ESPN3.
Head coach
Penny Jernigan's squad is looking to win its sixth MAC title. The Broncos won the conference championship meet in 1986 and 1987 under then-head coach and recently retired WMU athletics director Kathy Beauregard, before adding two more championships in 2006 and 2013. In 2020, Jernigan's Broncos captured the league's regular season title before the postseason meet was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Second Team All-MAC selection
Payton Murphy paces the Broncos and ranks second in the MAC with a national qualifying score (NQS) of 39.345 in the all-around. The junior captured the all-around title three times for Western Michigan this season, and broke the program record for the all-around twice, most recently on March 5 at Michigan State, when posted a 39.400 all-around score to lead the Broncos to a program record score of 196.725. Murphy also ranks in the top-5 in the league in NQS in floor (5th, 9.885), beam (T-2, 9.855) and vault (4th, 9.850).
Last season,
Sarah Moravansky captured the all-around title at the MAC Championships with a 39.250 all-round score. This season, the sophomore is fourth in the MAC with an all-around NQS of 39.165. Moravansky's 9.845 NQS on vault is fifth among all MAC gymnasts.
As a team, Western Michigan's NQS is 196.150, the highest in the Mid-American Conference.
* - Denotes School Record
For more information on the 2022 MAC Gymnastics Championships,
visit getsomemaction.com.
