Blugold gymnasts faced stiff competition Friday in the WIAC Tournament hosted by UW-Whitewater.

The team took sixth place overall at the conference tournament.

“We wanted to go into this meet and do our very best,” head coach Lisa McIntyre said. “To be honest, we were a little off in this meet.”

UW-La Crosse took the WIAC title, earning 180.825 points. UW-Oshkosh took second with 178.825, UW-Stout followed in third with 176.9 and UW-River Falls in fourth with 172.6.

Whitewater was a close fifth with 172.1, and UW-Eau Claire took sixth with 164.875.

The Blugolds highest finisher was junior Jessica Pink who took 10th place on the vault with a 9.3 score.

Pink also took 11th in the all-around competition, the highest for the Blugolds, with an overall score of 34.35.

“We were pretty confident,” freshman Kristina Reitzel said. “We were expecting to do well.”

Reitzel had three top-20 finishes. On the beam, she took 15th with a score of 8.55. The vault proved to be her strongest apparatus, which she placed 13th on with a score of 9.275.

Some of the highlights of the meet were Reitzel’s balance beam performance and Pink on the floor and vault, McIntyre said.

“As a team we weren’t fantastic on the bars,” she said.

The Blugolds’ highest finish on the bars came from Pink with a 21st place and Reitzel in 24th place.

“We have a really young, inexperienced team,” McIntyre said. “We’ve been asking a lot of these girls.”

The vault was the strongest apparatus for the Blugolds, placing four women in the top 25.

“We all worked so hard in practice on sticking our landings,” Reitzel said.

The women practiced a lot of pressure situations in the gym which prepared them for the conference tournament, McIntyre said.

“I can definitely say that in my five years here this has definitely been the best group so far,” McIntyre said. “Their motivation is wonderful.”

The Blugolds will head to River Falls for a meet Friday. They then will attend the West Regional Qualifier at Hamline University (Minn.) on March 9.

“We’re looking forward to regionals,” McIntyre said. “We haven’t gone into a meet and really show off what Eau Claire’s all about.

“We’re looking forward to doing that in our next meets.”