It’s commonly said that the third time is the charm.

Well, senior Kylee Botterman has broken that philosophy – and many records – as she continues to lead the Michigan women’s gymnastics team by besting her previous performances for the fourth week in a row.

The eigth-ranked Wolverines (4-1 Big Ten, 8-1 overall) faced No. 11 Kent State, Maryland and the University of Illinois-Chicago at Crisler Arena on Saturday night for their second quad meet of the season.

Michigan took home top honors, finishing with a score of 195.875 and outscoring the Flashes – its highest ranked opponent thus far – by 1.2 points. The Terrapins followed for a strong third place, and UIC rounded out the scoring with a 189.875 overall score.

“We saw highlights tonight from the freshmen,” fifth-year senior Jordan Sexton said. “I think they’re really starting to get in the groove of things and really feel confident.”

The Wolverines performed on the vault first, finishing with strong performances all around as all six competitors scored above a 9.750. After the first rotation, Michigan took an early lead – one it wouldn’t lose the rest of the night.

During the second rotation, the Wolverines were on the uneven bars – an event that, due to two falls, cost them their meet against then-No.17 Iowa the weekend before.

But this time, the senior captains led the way for Michigan. Sexton earned her season best on bars and shared the third place event title, after scoring a solid 9.875. Botterman followed with her season-best performance after sticking a smooth landing. She shared the event title with Kent State’s Lindsay Runyan, after tallying a 9.925.

“Our goal is just to perform like we practice,” Botterman said. “We have key words that we say to ourselves every time before we get onto the event.”

Michigan moved to the beam next and scored tightly, as it repeated technical mistakes.

But despite two of the Wolverines’ top performers of the night earning deductions for falls on the beam, freshman Johanna Sampson and Shelby Geis stepped up. Along with Botterman and Sexton, the foursome helped earn Michigan a respectable 48.525 score on the beam – enough to keep the Wolverines in the lead.

“It’s frustrating because we’ve practiced like champs on beam,” Michigan coach Bev Plocki said. “The two people that fell on beam tonight – one of them hit 100 percent of her routines all weekend and the other one only fell on one routine for the entire week. We’ve got to figure out what’s going different in competition than what we’re doing in practice.”

But the flood gates opened during the final rotation, as Michigan swept the floor – and the meet.

Sophomore Natalie Beilstein redeemed her fall on beam by scoring a 9.850.

Botterman took to the floor next, flawlessly landing each jump, including a pike full-in on her initial run. Her performance earned her a promising 9.9, giving her yet another event title – her third of the night – and pushed her into first place for the all-around for the fourth consecutive meet.

Freshman Reema Zacharia clinched the meet for the Wolverines as she gave an impressive 9.875 floor routine.

“I’m going to give Reema a shout out on floor because that was her first time competing in the lineup and she nailed it,” Botterman said.

Botterman did all but sweep the awards, taking first place titles in the bars, beam and floor events. She tied for second for the vault event – missing first place by just 0.075. Her fourth all-around title of the season rounded out her night, putting Botterman in the position as the player to beat.

The Wolverines will travel to New Hampshire on Saturday to face off in another non-conference meet before returning home to compete against No. 2 Stanford and No. 10 Nebraska at a tri-meet on Feb. 13.

“We have to get rid of those mistakes if we want to compete with the Stanfords, Alabamas, and Utahs we have coming up on our schedule,” Plocki said.