Continue reading Screencap Recap: London World Cup
Yearly Archives: 2017
Things Are Happening – April 7, 2017
A. Weekend schedule
| Friday, April 7 |
Scores | Watch |
| 5:00 ET/2:00 PT – USAG Championships Semifinal 1 Bridgeport Cornell Air Force West Chester |
LINK | FREE |
| 10:00 ET/7:00 PT – USAG Championships Semifinal 2 Lindenwood Texas Woman’s Yale Brown Seattle Pacific |
LINK | FREE |
| Saturday, April 8 |
Scores | Watch |
| 8:00am ET/5:00am PT – London World Cup – Women | NBC | |
| 2:00 ET/11:00 PT – London World Cup – Men | NBC | |
| 10:00 ET/7:00 PT – USAG Championships Team Final | LINK | FREE |
| Sunday, April 9 |
Scores | Watch |
| 4:00 ET/1:00 PT – USAG Championships Event Finals | LINK | FREE |
B. NCAA news
We may be in a holding pattern until NCAA nationals next week, but the weekly tour of various other NCAA championships arrives in Seattle this weekend for the USAG Collegiate Championship, which is limited to teams offering between 0 and 6 scholarships (as opposed to the DI norm of 12). Lindenwood and Bridgeport finished the season with identical RQSs and come in as the favorites.
Last weekend, UW-Whitewater took the DIII “we score vaults like JO now, but just for you” championship, its first title since 2014. La Crosse had won the previous two seasons.
The other NCAA news of the week is the retirement of Mark Stevenson, head coach at NC State for only the last 37 years (must try harder…). He’s been there so long he started as an assistant coach for the men’s team. Like, back when colleges had men’s teams. NC State made nationals once during his tenure, in 1998, and won five EAGL titles.
Colleen Johnson has been associate head coach for a while now and seems positioned as the obvious successor, but as these head coaching jobs open up through the off season, we’ll have to replenish our list of cool new coaches whose names we throw out willy-nilly at every opportunity now that Elise Ray and the Santoses are taken. In terms of head coaches, I’d expect Jen Kesler and Umme Salim-Beasley to be quite sought after by bigger programs given what Jen has done at Lindenwood after being thrown into that position as a literal fetus, and given the record-exploding season Temple had this year. Continue reading Things Are Happening – April 7, 2017
National Championship Preview Part 2: Eastern Semifinal
The evening semifinal is shaping up to be the juicier and more uncertain of the two. While the first semifinal has three favorites and three challengers waiting to see if it’s a sloppy meet (which it will be), the second semifinal defies classification when it comes to the middle seeds. Really only the qualification of Nebraska, the most mid-196y of the teams in this semifinal, would constitute a true surprise or upset.
April 14, 7:00 CT
Teams (starting event)
[1] LSU (bye before floor)
[2] Florida (vault)
[3] Alabama (floor)
[4] Michigan (bye before bars)
[5] Georgia (beam)
[6] Nebraska (bars)
Individuals
Mollie Korth, Kentucky, AA (rotating w/ LSU)
Briannah Tsang, Penn State, AA (rotating w/ Florida)
Alex Hyland, Kentucky, AA (rotating w/ Michigan)
Zaakira Muhammad, West Virginia, AA (rotating w/ Alabama)
Sabrina Garcia, Penn State, AA (rotating w/ Georgia)
Cami Drouin-Allaire, George Washington, AA(rotating w/ Nebraska)
Denelle Pedrick, Central Michigan, VT (rotating w/ LSU)
Elizabeth Price, Stanford, UB (rotating w/ Florida)
Katy Clements, Central Michigan, BB (rotating w/ Michigan)
Chelsea Raineri, George Washington, VT (rotating w/ Georgia)
Desiree Palomares, Cal, BB, (rotating w/ Florida)
LSU
LSU enters the first day of competition as the Oklahoma of the second semifinal, the team that really should qualify to Super Six barring any kind of 2015-style “the freshman LOST HER MIND” moment. The Tigers did, however, score a low-for-them 197.450 at regionals without counting a fall—which is cause for some vague concern about what would happen if they did count a fall—but the overall scoring potential is too high to see LSU being vulnerable without multiple and significant mistakes. LSU would have to give qualification away. No one is going to take it from them.
A flew blips did crop up in that regionals 197.450, and fairly unexpected ones. Aside from a bit of a flopsy-daisy in the middle of the beam lineup, LSU did not perform as well on vault as we would expect, an event that must not only be an asset but a win at nationals if LSU is to take the championship. At regionals, Harrold didn’t go—Cannamela’s full replaced her—and LSU ended up counting a couple lowish 9.8s. That would be fine even if replicated in this semifinal (because Gnat, because Edney) but wouldn’t be enough to give LSU the necessary advantage in Super Six. Something to watch. Continue reading National Championship Preview Part 2: Eastern Semifinal
National Championship Preview Part 1: Western Semifinal
By the magic of the draw (and by magic, I of course mean trash), the semifinals have been divided by conference and geography, with the eastern-ish teams from the SEC and Big Ten placed in the evening session and the western-ish teams from the Pac-12 and Big 12 placed in the afternoon session. It’s pretty racist.
We’re a little more than a week away from nationals now, so to begin preparing, here’s a preview of the race to qualify to Super Six from the first semifinal, the one that appears the more straightforward of the two but is certainly not open-and-shut.
April 14, 12:00 CT
Teams (starting event)
[1] Oklahoma (bye before floor)
[2] Utah (vault)
[3] UCLA (bye before bars)
[4] Oregon State (floor)
[5] Denver (beam)
[6] Washington (bars)
Individuals
Jessica Yamzon, Arkansas, AA (rotating w/ Utah)
Alexis Mattern, Ohio State, AA (rotating w/ UCLA)
Shani Remme, Boise State, AA (rotating w/ Washington)
Angel Metcalf, Iowa, AA (rotating w/ Denver)
Katie Becker, Auburn, AA (rotating w/ Oklahoma)
Haylee Young, Iowa State, AA (rotating w/ Oregon State)
Braie Speed, Arkansas, VT (rotating w/Oklahoma)
Samantha Cerio, Auburn, UB (rotating w/ Utah)
Clair Kaji, Iowa, BB (rotating w/ Utah)
Oklahoma
As much as a sure thing to qualify to Super Six exists, Oklahoma is it. Oklahoma’s score from regionals was nearly a point better than any other team in this semifinal and was .625 better than any other team in the country. The margin for error the top teams usually have heading into regionals is what Oklahoma has in the semifinal. Counting a fall would be fine, and that’s pretty rare for nationals.
My primary areas to watch at regionals were vault, where Oklahoma responded with basically-almost sticks from Dowell, Jackson, and Nichols for 49.575, and the Maggie Nichols AA, which she did and scored 39.750. So, I’d say both of those were a check mark. A dose of floor landings was the only knock on Oklahoma’s regionals performance, which would serve them very well if replicated at nationals. I’ll get into the title race in more detail in a later preview, but it would be quite the ridiculous shock if Oklahoma were not to advance to Super Six somehow. Continue reading National Championship Preview Part 1: Western Semifinal