Among the major teams, Oregon State was worst-hit by routine departures after the 2017 season, and it’s not even close. With lost sets from Gardiner, McMillan, Aufiero, Colussi-Pelaez, Jimenez, and Ricci, the Beavs return very few routines that even made cameo appearances last season, let alone the final postseason lineups.

OREGON STATE – 2018 Returning Routines
VAULT Dessaints – 9.900 Jacobsen – 9.855 Gill – 9.785 Khamedoost – 9.775	BARS Singley – 9.830 Jacobsen – 9.815 Khamedoost – 9.780 M Colussi-Pelaez – 9.460 Gill – 9.250
BEAM Dessaints – 9.895 Gill – 9.795 Davis – 9.650 Lowery – 9.375	FLOOR Lowery – 9.860 Jacobsen – 9.775 Gill – 9.763

OSU will have to find a bunch of new routines for 2018, a minimum of three on every event, just to have a respectable number of options that can fill out lineups and project against injury. Putting that entire burden on the new freshman class of five and transfer Dagen would be unfair and unrealistic. (We’re going to need to see much more from the sophomores than we did last year). Still, most of the freshmen should be able to provide a couple competition routines apiece as part of the project.

Kaitlyn Yanish

The star of the class and most likely freshman all-arounder (a.k.a., please get into the all-around immediately) is Kaitlyn Yanish, who finished second AA in her division at 2017 JO nationals. The highlight event for Yanish is floor, with a DLO that provides a necessary bump in both difficulty and execution among the current floor options. I expect her to anchor.

I’m sure Oregon State would have loved for Yanish to have more than a Yurchenko full on vault given her power (they do still have 10.0 starts from Dessaints and Jacobsen), but her full in JO was quick and high and ready to be used weekly.

Almost like you could add another 1/2 twist to…OK I’ll stop.

Expect Yanish to provide an important routine on beam as well.

She proves in this routine that she can layout stepout and make them pretty crisp. Leaps may be an issue (that switch side probably needs to go), but there is enough there to work with nonetheless. 

Bars is a weird one. I say that because there’s basically nothing here except a bail and a dismount, but at the same time her execution is pretty excellent.

Those legs are GLUED together. That’s what allowed her to score quite well in JO and is what should make her a good NCAA score. We’ll see if that execution can stand up to adding more content, though, because this routine would receive a flat 0.1 up-to-level deduction in NCAA now because of the McMurtry Rule.

Savanna Force

A depleted slate of floor options coming into the season means that Oregon State will welcome the arrival of Savanna Force, who performs a full-in. If controlled well enough, that difficulty should allow her to force her way into (AH HA HA HA I’M A DELIGHT *VOLCANO* *PLUMMET*) that lineup. Force most recently finished 3rd on floor at Region 1s, .075 behind the winner Kylie Dickson. You can deduct for legs, but it nonetheless looks like a worthwhile option.

I’d expect beam to be Force’s other most likely area of contribution if the consistency is there. She’s able to maintain solid line through her acro elements and appears comfortable enough with straddle jumps that you could put something together to minimize deductions.

On vault, Force does have a full, but a tendency to land chest-down means it’s not the most comfortable event for her or the most likely full to make an appearance. But with a fairly limited number of proven options, having a full helps.

Niya Mack

As Oregon State works to add more options on floor, Mack should emerge as a legitimate contender. Floor was typically her strongest event in JO, with exactly the kind of double pike, switch side+popa gymnastics the Beavs will need to fill out a lineup of six.

Mack also competes a Yfull on vault. While showing moments of inconsistency here and there, her full is also fairly laid out most of the way and should either get a spot in the lineup or provide very necessary reinforcements.

Beam and bars have tended to score lower for Mack and are less likely to make appearances. On beam, she does get 10 unique-points for performing a side aerial + round-off as her acro series because we see that never, but that kind of compromise of an acro series makes you wonder if they just had to get creative because no real acro series were working.

Lexie Gonzales

Gonzales is a very interesting one to me because her most important routine to Oregon State may end up being bars, an event she hasn’t competed since 2016 and where she basically always scores 8s. I know, but watch.

That toe point in that Jaeger. That Pak. There’s crazy potential here. She basically just needs a dismount to turn this into something real, and I’d imagine the OSU coaches are betting that they can come up with that very dismount, work on this as a project, and in time turn it into a useful, previously undetected bars routine.

Also expect Gonzales to contend on beam—her actual best event—where she shows smooth and extended acro skills and executes simpler dance elements like the split jump quite well. It has the makings of something that could do nicely indeed.

Gonzales had a clean and simple double pike floor routine in JO that may have been of use, but she is not currently listed as training floor on OSU’s roster, which is a shame.

Beyond that, I don’t have too much to say about walk-on Colette Yamaoka because the last competition results she has are from 2015. In Level 9 competition. Based on training videos, beam is probably the closest. It appears she also has a nice Shap on bars but not the remainder of a routine.