CHICAGO, Ill. (Feb. 10, 2025) - The Buena Vista University STUNT team played four games over the weekend at the University of Concordia-Chicago to begin its 2025 campaign and finished the trips at 1-3 overall.

The Beavers went up against a pair of tough teams on Saturday morning to begin the weekend and fell to St. Mary's College (Ind.) 8-2 and the host Cougars, 10-0. On Sunday, the team again faced Concordia-Chicago and made big strides despite falling, 10-2, but closed out the two days with a strong 2-1 victory over the University of Olivet.

During Saturday's opener against St. Mary's, BVU trailed just 2-1 at the end of the 1st and 4-2 at the half. Both teams battled in the third with neither side scoring points before St. Mary's outscored BVU 4-1 in the fourth. Concordia held a 2-0 lead after the 1st and 4-0 cushion at the half. The Cougars added one more point in the third and then scored five in the fourth.

The team was without one of its top performers for the weekend and head coach Kezia Molinsky feels that it played a major factor early on.

"The team's nerves and worry about losing one of our top bases and tumblers to injury, was evident," she said. "Instead of focusing on technique, we went in to what I call 'survival mode' and just getting through the routines rather than maintaining technique and control in our lifts and tosses. After Saturday, we met as a team and in small groups to discuss what we needed to do to be better in day two."

It was a much stronger day for BVU to close out the weekend and Molinsky was happy with the team's bounce back on the final day.

"On Sunday, the team did a 180 and was focused and determined," Molinsky added. "We played CUC again Sunday morning and while we didn't get the 'W' our technique and approach to our game was significantly better. In game two Sunday, we knew from scouting that we were the better team against Olivet, and instead of running up the score, we played our rookies in rounds to get them mat experience."

BVU will have a little break in the action before it returns to the competition in late March.
 
"We plan to make adjustments to our routines in order to keep a positive trajectory in our skills and technique," says Molinksy. "We hope to avoid illness and injury moving into our next four games where we host a very talented new team in St. Mary University and an established tough competitor in NAIA Central Methodist."

Those two teams will travel to Storm Lake as BVU plays host to them on Mar. 21-22. The Beavers will play Central Methodist twice on Friday night starting at 5 p.m., before facing them again to begin the final day at 10 a.m. before closing out with St. Mary's (Ind.). at noon.