It took another solid balance beam performance from a hometown girl, senior captain Kelsey Knutson, to right the ship for the No. 17 Michigan women’s gymnastics team after recent road woes.

The Wolverines rebounded from last weekend's defeat by Nebraska with a dominant tri-meet victory against No. 14 Iowa State (2-3) and BYU (0-5) on Friday, posting a season-high 196.000 score in the win.

In her return to Ames, Iowa – where she won three Iowa Gymnast of the Year titles in high school – Knutson took first place on the balance beam for the second consecutive meet with a 9.850 score.

While the meet was, at face value, no more than a good win, the whole experience was a trip down memory lane for the decorated gymnast.

“Words can’t really even describe my feelings,” Knutson said. “I grew up watching collegiate gymnasts here at the Hilton Coliseum since I was five years old, so to finally compete in that environment, it was very surreal.”

As a leader of the team, Knutson knew she needed to display some consistency to get her team on track.

“For her to have developed the kind of confidence that she has now on beam is wonderful, because last year she didn’t have that kind of confidence," Michigan coach Bev Plocki said. "To be able to come home in front of a lot of her hometown people and to be able to do that was really important.”

From a team standpoint, the Wolverines (2-0 Big Ten, 5-1 overall) showed their diversity by taking each of the four event titles, as well as the all-around award.

Michigan benefited tremendously from their all-around performers, junior Kylee Botterman and senior Sarah Curtis, who took top all-around honors with scores of 39.300 and 39.250, respectively. Botterman won both the vault and uneven bars routines, and took first place in the all-around for the second consecutive meet.

Pacing the Wolverines again was freshman Natalie Beilstein, who took first-place on the floor routine with her season-high 9.900 score just a week after earning her second Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors.

Senior captain Jordan Sexton also gave the Wolverines a boost by tying Knutson as the meet's highest-scoring competitor on the beam.

For a team looking so desperately for an answer to their undeniable struggles on the beam, their scores were a sigh of relief. In each of the previous two meets, Michigan suffered three falls out of six performers on the beam, but luckily only five routines count for each event.

“It was huge for us to go out and hit 6-for-6 on beam,” Knutson said. “We have very talented balance beam athletes, and we were able to showcase that talent, and we’ve been performing well in practice but couldn’t seem to replicate that in the meet setting.”

With an away meet next Friday against West Virginia, Iowa State, and William and Mary in Las Vegas, Michigan hopes to build on its recent achievements and maintain the balanced scoring for the remainder of the season.

“Obviously (this meet) is what a team performance is all about, for everyone to contribute somewhere,” Plocki said. “We finally put together all four events and came out with a score that I think is more representative of the quality of team that we are.”