There was no doubt whether No. 8 Nebraska (No. 1 in the Big Ten) would present a steep challenge for the Iowa women’s gymnastics team on Feb. 10 in Carver-Hawkeye. And, as expected, the GymHawks didn’t come out on top — 195.675-194.900 being the final score.

After the fiery pyrotechnic entrance of the team, the start of the meet was rough for the GymHawks. Scores ran low, and the performances weren’t quite where women’s gymnastics head coach Larissa Libby expected them to be.

As difficult as that was for the Hawkeyes to swallow, the Huskers actually didn’t do much better. The first rotation began with Iowa on the vault and Nebraska on the uneven bars. The Huskers secured their lead early, but only because they outscored Iowa by quite a bit on the uneven bars. Iowa posted the higher team score on vault, however.

The rest of the meet was characterized as a catch-up game, but Iowa never caught up. The Haawkeyes came close, however, in the first half of the first rotation. Iowa, nationally ranked No. 23 on the beam, outscored the Huskers, who are No. 8 on the beam. In the second half of the second rotation, when Nebraska’s senior Abbie Epperson fell from the beam, the door opened for the Hawkeyes.

But then Iowa recorded two falls on the floor, and the Huskers recovered with high scores on the rest of the beam routines. The GymHawks finished the meet 0.775 points behind the Huskers.