at Seattle-Pacific, January 14, 2011

The competition at Seattle-Pacific University in Seattle, Washington took place on Friday, January 14th, 2011. The competition was a rough one for your Redbirds, and you can read all about the highlights and what Coach Bob Conkling had to say about it at the following link:

Redbirds Defeat Seattle Pacific in First Away Meet

With the exception of the comments made by Coach Conkling, it seems like the Birds had a pretty good competition against the Seattle-Pacific Falcons. Unfortunately, the students over in the media department at Illinois State University really have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to the sport of gymnastics. Wins and losses over an opponent have absolutely no bearing over advancing to the NCAA Regional or National competition that Illinois State wants to compete in. Instead, gymnastics is based on averages, and not just the average of all of the meets that the girls compete in, but six of them out of the twelve to fifteen that are held every year. The Regional Qualifying Score (or RQS, as it is commonly referred to) is made up of the six highest team scores that the Redbirds achieve. Of those six meets, three of them MUST be on the road because many teams are favored when they’re competing in their home venues. After those six highest overall scores have been accumulated, the highest of them is dropped and the remaining five are averaged in order to eliminate any outliers. The reason behind this ridiculous math? As one can infer from its given name, the RQS determines who is going to be attending the NCAA Regional competition. Of the eighty three collegiate gymnastics teams, only thirty six qualify for Regionals, normally with an RQS of about 193.000. So, the conclusion of this post: while yes, ISU gymnastics did win their first away competition, it was with a score of 189.600, one that is not yet good enough to achieve their goal of qualifying to the NCAA Regional Championship.