The No. 14 nationally-ranked Kent State gymnastics team will attempt to take over the top spot in the Mid-American Conference as the Flashes welcome conference rival Central Michigan to the M.A.C. Center on Saturday.

The Flashes (7-1-1, 1-0 MAC) return home for its first true home meet since Jan. 9.

Kent State leads the all-time series against Central Michigan (9-1, 2-0 MAC), with a 40-36 record.

Kent State will be looking to regain consistency and bounce back from mistakes made last weekend in the team’s win over Bowling Green.

Head coach Brice Biggin said he wasn’t very happy with practice on Tuesday because of the lack of intensity and consistency.

“We’ve made mistakes the last three weeks that we need to learn from if we expect to be successful this weekend,” he said.

Biggin said he’s not too worried about vault because he knows the lineup is solid, but the emphasis is that “we cannot make two mistakes on one event.”

“We need to be able to put together a solid meet on all four events,” Biggin said. “That’s what we are expecting Central (Michigan) to come here and do, and we expect to (do) that as well.”

Freshman Nikki Moore said the team has the same assignments and goals, “but it’s really important that we beat them this week.”

“We need a no-fall meet like we did the first two,” she said. “We definitely need to learn from our mistakes.”

Moore said the team has been focusing more on landings this week to counteract the recent mistakes, especially on the vault event.

Biggin said most often a meet is decided on the balance beam, but he wants to see a strong performance on the floor exercise, where he said the team has been lacking this season.

“Central (Michigan) will finish on beam, and we finish on floor,” he said. “So, if it comes down routine-to-routine, we need to really put some pressure on them and do a good job.”

The meet between the Flashes and Chippewas begins at 1 p.m.

Contact Tyler Goddard at [email protected].