Abou-Mitri Claims First MAC Gymnast of the Year Award for Kent State
7/22/2010 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - Owners of 11 Mid-American Conference Championships in 29 years, there has certainly been no shortage of successful gymnasts in the Kent State program. With apologies to athletes such as Dainty Heiser and Shelly Stambaugh who graduated before the creation of the award in 1997, junior Christine Abou-Mitri achieved a first for the Kent State program.
Announced Friday night (March 26), Abou-Mitri became the first Golden Flash to be named MAC Gymnast of the Year.
"This is great for Abou," said Kent State head coach Brice Biggin. "With the year Abou has had, she is really the heart and soul of this program. While we were struggling this season, she was trying to pull us through some tough times.
"I cannot think of anyone more deserving of this award right now than Abou-Mitri," Biggin added.
She currently leads the conference on two events in regional qualifying score. She has an RQS of 9.840 on beam (0.055 ahead of Central Michigan's Katie Simon), but the deficit becomes much larger when looking at average score. With an average of 9.803, Abou-Mitri leads the next nearest competitor (Kaylyn Millick of Eastern Michigan) by a jaw-dropping .125.
She also leads in the all-around with an RQS of 39.125.
Abou-Mitri won the all-around in five of 10 meets this season, including a total of better that 39 in six meets this season. She also won seven beam, three vault, two floor and one bars title, including a win on every event and in the all-around against Northern Illinois and Rutgers (Feb. 19).
Kent State returns to action tomorrow in the annual MAC Championships, which takes place tomorrow at 2 p.m. in Bowling Green, Ohio.
