Nebraska will have to make do without Ashley Lambert and Jennie Laeng in the upcoming season, which will be a challenge and will require the cultivation of at least two new routines on most events in order to keep pace with the nearly-made-Super-Six result from last season.

To accomplish this, Nebraska brings in a giant crop of new gymnasts, ideally continuing the project of developing some more depth and cultivating more choice for lineups with a larger roster than the Huskers had in the olden days of a few years ago.

Kynsee Roby

The most acclaimed of the group is Kynsee Roby, who finished second at JO nationals in 2016 and who would be the most likely of the freshmen to contribute the all-around. So, of course, she tore her ACL in March.

March was a fairly long time ago, though, so we can still hold out hope for 2018 contributions, as well as future AA status.

Most important in Roby’s repertoire is bars. Nebraska needs bars routines this season, and because this is not a particularly barsy freshman class overall, that puts more emphasis on Roby’s set. Her JO routine features a piked Jaeger, a legs-together Pak, and an excellent straight body position on a DLO, which can be molded into a very good NCAA routine.

Extension is a major feature in Roby’s gymnastics, which is also on display in this quick and precise beam work. That loso series and front aerial will do just fine.

Bars and beam are the highlight routines, but at full strength Roby has a pretty high full on vault that should fit right in with Project We Make Vault’s Here at Nebraska, as well as a floor routine that while not showing huge difficulty, would be clean and comfortable enough to be lineup-usable. Continue reading 2018 Freshmen – Nebraska →

Kentucky is in a somewhat unconventional position for NCAA gymnastics in that no competition routines were lost after last season, and no one would begrudge Kentucky retaining basically the exact same lineups for another year since they may still be the best available options.

The star of the 2018 freshmen was going to be Mollie Korth, but she ended up joining a year early, and we all know how that worked out (well). As a result, the remaining 2018 walk-on-central of a freshman class is one of supporting players and backup possibilities. None looks to be immediately muscling her way into the deep half of lineups because the team NEEDS that routine, but they do each bring a couple believable sets that could find their way into lineups if needed, or at least give Kentucky a much larger breadth of options this season.

Madison Averett

Of note, Averett has competed a front 2/1 on floor in the past, the one E pass I’ve seen from this freshman class, which could be a useful look for the lineup if they can fill out the rest of a routine.

Floor was Averett’s best routine during her run to JO Nationals in 2016, earning her best score at states, regionals, and nationals, though she also brings a complete beam routine that could hang around as a choice.

Katherine Marianos

Marianos is another who typically got her best scores on floor, bringing solid tumbling in a double pike, double tuck routine option that I could see being an option in Kentucky’s menu, but I’d also keep an eye on her vault. This is not much of a vaulting class (with the only Yfulls coming from Marianos and occasionally Harman), so if Kentucky does end up being in the market for a perfectly useful Yfull, Marianos has shown the most success with it in the past and would be the option there. Continue reading 2018 Freshmen – Kentucky →

It is customary for UCLA to assemble a cast of thousands for any given season, and this year’s roster is no exception with seven new freshmen joining the ranks: Nia Dennis, Pauline Tratz, Savannah Kooyman, Sofia Gonzalez, Kendal Poston, Rebecca Karlous, and Lilia Waller.

They’ll be tasked with bolstering a returning squad that is not exactly starved for numbers but is certainly looking for an injection of new counting routines and reasonably reliable depth on the leg events.

Nia Dennis

The star of UCLA’s new group is unquestionably Dennis, a six-year US elite who dropped down to L10 for 2017 to become JO national champ before heading off to UCLA.

Dennis has the chops to be a highly ranked all-arounder in NCAA, and the expectation will be that she provide four events to a Bruin team full of names but that still needs a reliable, late-lineup, weekly all-arounder to take the pressure off a relatively walking-wounded group of other elites.

Let’s begin with vault because it’s no secret that a lack of 9.9s and non-terrifying 10.0 starts on vault held UCLA back last season. Dennis had a very good DTY in her elite days, seemingly a salve to UCLA’s start-value problems, but we haven’t seen that vault from her in a while. She vaulted a full during the 2017 JO season and has been vaulting fulls in preseason training for UCLA as well. We’ll all hope to see a 10.0 start from Dennis at some point in her Bruin career, but that DTY may be a thing of the past.

Regardless, Dennis should be in UCLA’s vault lineup because her full would be among the biggest and most stickable the team has (and would outscore the 10.0 starts we did see from them last season), but she’s also kind of supposed to be the new powerful vaulter… Continue reading 2018 Freshmen – UCLA →