West Liberty’s Acrobatics and Tumbling team took a dramatic loss against No. 7-ranked Fairmont State University on Sunday night inside the ASRC, losing by a single point. The end score was 254.77-253.61 in favor of the Falcons, with the lead going back and forth as the events went on throughout the night.

The Lady Hilltoppers were coming into this meet off the back of a loss to No.5-ranked Gannon University who are one of the nations highest scoring teams so far this season. They knew that the meet against Fairmont was going to be just as challenging and they took this one to the very last event, giving the undefeated Falcons their closest game yet.

In their second home meet of the year, WLU lost four of the first five events before performing extremely well in the team event in which they outscored their opponents by 87.01-85.47. In addition to a win in the team event, the Hilltoppers also had the edge in the pyramid event with a 29.40-29.10 advantage in the three heats. They scored a meet-high 9.90 in the third heat of the pyramid event, while also notching up a 9.80 and a 9.70 in the first two heats.

This thrilling meet fell on an important night for the Acrobatics and Tumbling program as they paid tribute to their six seniors on senior night. This will be the last season on the hilltop for seniors Via Anderson, Kylee Buzzard and Kira Newburn while fellow classmates Abbey Bauer, Lexus Ficca and Kenzie Kyle have accepted the NCAA’s eligibility waiver for this year and will compete again next fall.

This season has seen exceptional performances both individually and collectively, with numerous members of the squad receiving conference awards and recognition. Senior All-Mec standouts, Kyle and Ficca have recently received the MEC Athlete of the Week award while junior base Sydney Schaumacher also received the award earlier this year. Freshman Katie Embrosky has been named the National Freshman of the Week for two consecutive weeks with teammate Via Anderson also receiving national recognition in being named last week’s NCATA National Specialist of the Week.
This match-up was an extremely large indicator as to who will finish at the top of the Mountain East Conference with each team only playing five conference games in this condensed season. Both teams were undefeated in conference matches coming into this meet, however it is the Falcons who are now in pole position. Having won their first three meets by at least 10 points, the Toppers sit second in the MEC standings leaving them in good shape for the conference championship with one regular season meet still to go.

Head Coach Kelsey Kyle will be hoping that her Lady Toppers can get back to winning ways as they return to action with an away meet against Frostburg State University this Wednesday March 31 in what is their last regular season meet before the MEC Tournament, which starts Friday Apr. 9.