In 15 tries, the Michigan women’s gymnastics team had never beaten Georgia on the Gym Dogs' home turf. This weekend was no different.

In fact, focusing on and hitting routines may have been more difficult than usual for the Wolverines on Saturday, who finished the meet with 195.825 points to top-ranked Georgia’s 197.004.

The Bulldogs' huge Stegeman Coliseum, equipped with enormous scoreboards, made ignoring the score difficult for No. 14 Michigan. As if that wasn’t enough, the venue was packed full of red-and-black-clad fans for Georgia’s Senior Night. It was the final regular-season appearance for four seniors and Gym Dog coach Suzanna Yoculan. The coach plans to retire at the end of the season after 26 years at the helm for Georgia.

“We try not to focus on the scores, the things that we can’t control,” Michigan coach Bev Plocki said. “We try to just focus on ourselves.”

Michigan (13-5) wanted to focus on its motto of confidence the week leading up to its meet against Georgia (12-0). The Wolverines hoped to notch a season-best road score in order to improve their regional qualifying score before next weekend’s Big Ten Championships. They wanted to top last weekend’s 196.325 season-best away score at Gainesville, Florida. But unfortunately for Michigan, that goal never became reality.

The Wolverines started the meet with their second-best score of the season-best performances on the uneven bars and tied their season high on vault. Junior Sarah Curtis and sophomores Kylee Botterman and Kari Pearce all had season high’s on the vault. Curtis also recorded a season high on the floor and senior Tatjana Thuener-Rego recorded a season best on the bars.

But the first two Wolverines fell on beam, slowing their scoring pace.

“Beam for every team in the country is the toughest,” Plocki said. “Balance beam is the equalizer. Every team, no matter how good they are, can fall off beam.”

Michigan is still on track to compete in the NCAA Championships, but higher-ranked squads have an easier path. The No. 18 team must compete against the No. 1 team in the first round.

Plocki said her team was looking for a bigger boost from the weekend.

“We did make an improvement,” Plocki said. “But it would have felt better going into Big Tens if we had put all four events together and had a great meet to build confidence.”