After taking second place to North Carolina State at a four-team meet hosted by N.C. State, the Flashes travel to Columbus Friday for a difficult road match against Ohio State.

Flashes’ coach Brice Biggin said the match will be a huge testament to the Flashes’ level of talent and is excited to face the Buckeyes, who are ranked No. 14 in the nation.

“Central [Michigan] is our big rival as far as the MAC conference goes, but Ohio State is on this year’s schedule as the highest-ranked team we’re going to see, so obviously it’d be great to be able to go down there and give them a run for their money and see what happens at the end of the day,” Biggin said.

In their last weekend’s match against N.C. State, the Flashes were let down in their floor routines. Biggin said not overemphasizing the floor routines against Ohio State and concentrating more in every event is the key for the team this weekend.

“We’re not going to take anything for granted,” Biggin said. “I think we need to go out there understanding that for us to have a great meet and give ourselves any shot at winning, we need to go out strong in all four events.”

Sophomore Marie Case, who won Kent State’s only event against N.C. State, agreed.

“We have improvements we need to make in each event,” Case said. “As long as we hit our routines the way we know how to, it’s definitely going to be a close competition with them.”

The Flashes’ main goal is to leave Columbus with more confidence, win or lose.

“It would just make us more confident for regionals and mainly for [the Mid-American Conference Championships] because if we know we can compete against a big team like Ohio State, then easily we can crush every team in the MAC Championships,” Case said.

“Number one, we need a good away score, so it’d be huge to go out there and really have a great meet,” Biggin said. “I think if anything, it’s really going to give us some confidence and not backing down to a team that’s very talented. Any time you can go against a really good opponent and go out and not flinch definitely helps your confidence as a team.”

The meet starts at 7 p.m. in Columbus at St. John Arena.

Contact A.J. Atkinson at [email protected] and @AJ_Atkinson1.