| 2020 STANFORD ROSTER |
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| Seniors | ||
| Kaylee Cole |
VT BB FX |
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| Ashley Tai |
BB |
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| Aleeza Yu | VT UB |
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| Juniors | ||
| Kyla Bryant |
VT UB BB FX |
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| Rachael Flam |
VT UB BB FX |
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| Grace Garcia |
VT |
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| Taylor Lawson |
UB BB FX |
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| Lauren Navarro |
UB BB FX |
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| Sophomores | ||
| Madison Brunette |
VT UB |
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| Morgan Hoang |
FX |
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| Eve Micco |
|
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| Wesley Stephenson |
BB |
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| Grace Waguespack |
UB |
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| Freshmen | ||
| Jade Chrobok |
VT UB BB FX |
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| Kelly Ramm |
|
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| Adela Stonecipher |
VT FX |
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| Chloe Widner |
VT UB BB FX |
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FINAL SEASON RANKING
2019 – 22nd
2018 – 28th
2017 – 28th
2016 – 10th
2015 – 5rd
2014 – 9th
2013 – 12th
2012 – 4th
2011 – 15th
2010 – 4th
THE 2019 STORY
It’s been a while since Stanford was truly competitive on a national stage, and those years of Stanford suddenly turning great for the last couple meets of the season and surprising everyone to make Super Six are beginning to feel like a vestige of a different era.
Stanford’s 22nd-place finish in 2019 should be regarded as an encouraging improvement over the previous two seasons with fledgling sprouts of new growth emerging, but it still ranks as one of the weaker results in program history. Stanford’s 2020 focus will not be on replacing last year’s routines or keeping pace with that performance but on improving every event.
DEPARTED 2019 ROUTINES
Taryn Fitzgerald – VT, BB
Hailee Hoffman – FX
Nicole Hoffman – BB
Catherine Rogers – UB
Stanford loses a few routines from its 2019 slate, but none of those were gigantic or lineup-defining scores, so Stanford won’t feel like there is aggressive work to do to refill lineups.
INCOMING GYMNASTS
Stanford brings in a class of four, featuring a few athletes who will be absolutely vital to the improvement project in 2020—JO National champion and prospective AAer Chloe Widner and Canadian elite Jade Chrobok, who should deliver for Stanford (along with Adela Stonecipher) a net increase in depth and late-lineup scores.
2020 PROJECTION
Stanford’s 2020 roster is certainly stronger than its 2019 roster, so every expectation should be that the team improves upon that 22nd-place finish. The question is really how much.
It’s easy to imagine a team that gets a couple tenths better here and there and is able to shift itself from a ranking in the 20s back to the deeper half of the teens. That in itself would be a victory, though is that satisfying enough for a team that used to make Super Six?
VAULT
2019 Event Ranking: 32
| Lineup locks: Rachel Flam, Kyla Bryant, Aleeza Yu, Chloe Widner |
| Lineup options: Jade Chrobok, Kaylee Cole, Grace Garcia, Madison Brunette, Morgan Hoang, Lauren Navarro |
Stanford struggled to fill out a vault lineup in 2019, ultimately having to put up Madison Brunette’s full with little intention of counting her score, just to fill out six spots. There’s not necessarily a deus ex machina coming to the vault lineup in 2020, but the number of realistic lineup options should improve to help boost the scores at least more regularly into the 49s.
Chloe Widner scored well for her full in JO—a vault I expect to be as significant as Bryant and Yu’s fulls in the Stanford lineup to bring a new 9.8 into the fold—though Flam will still have to lead the way with her often underappreciated Omelianchik. Chrobok vaulted a fairly viable 1.5 as recently as 2018 before switching back to the full in 2019, but Stanford is going to want to try to get that 1.5 back as a competition option…because of 1.5. We shall see.
Ideally, you’d have Grace Garcia and her Tsuk full, though that has been a touch-and-go prospect and in the few editions we’ve seen, the amplitude deductions have outweighed the 10.0 start. So, Kaylee Cole will probably come back into the vault lineup, Stonecipher could get chances, and Lauren Navarro was part of the lineup in her first year. Stanford should less often have to fake it to get six lineup vaults this year, but it will still be a struggle to keep pace with the stronger vaulting teams.
BARS
2019 Event Ranking: 31
| Lineup locks: Kyla Bryant, Chloe Widner, Jade Chrobok, Aleeza Yu |
| Lineup options: Grace Waguespack, Taylor Lawson, Madison Brunette, Rachael Flam, Lauren Navarro, Wesley Stephenson, Grace Garcia |
We’ve all lived through the pain of Stanford on bars over the last…too many seasons. I’m happy to report that bars is the event where I anticipate the most improvement in 2020. This isn’t one of those Stanford previews where I can’t come up with six names for bars. Which has happened before.
Chrobok and Widner should both enter the lineup right away, Chrobok with her elite difficulty that can be pared down well for NCAA and Widner with her crisp and clean JO routine. If those two routines come through as expected, then you have Bryant’s strong set and Aleeza Yu—who came back last year to get 9.8+ pretty much every week—to form what is a much more substantial core than the Stanford lineup has seen in a while. Waguespack, Brunette, and Lawson were all sort of hovering around the 9.800 zone last year, so a couple of them will then need to come back into the lineup to fill out the six. Critically, that would mean Stanford actually has the luxury to pick and choose which members of that group might bring in the best scores.
This should (should) also mean that people like poor Rachael Flam don’t have to do bars anymore—as she has basically her whole NCAA career because there were no other options. Which is a win. Caveat, I think I said that last year too, and it didn’t happen. But I definitely mean it this time. Ish.
BEAM
2019 Event Ranking: 29
| Lineup locks: Chloe Widner, Kyla Bryant, Taylor Lawson |
| Lineup options: Wesley Stephenson, Lauren Navarro, Kaylee Cole, Rachael Flam, Adela Stonecipher, Jade Chrobok, Ashley Tai |
Stanford’s beam lineup was pretty elastic in 2019 in that we never really knew whether it was going to be Navarro, or Flam, or Tai, or Stephenson, or Cole filling out the final spots in the lineup. That’s why, beyond a couple key athletes, I’m not exceptionally confident in who’s actually going to make this lineup and anticipate some experimentation again in 2020.
Where I do feel confident: Chloe Widner fulfills the Texas Dreams prophecy and is a star on beam who should deliver the lineup’s best routine, a possible 9.9 to boost the rotation by a tenth or so. Kyla Bryant and Taylor Lawson account for the best returning routines on beam and will be there as well.
For the other spots, it’s kind of shrug emoji right now. Wesley Stephenson peaked at 9.875 last year, which is encouraging, and of course Lauren Navarro’s talent would put her toward the top of the list in an ideal world. Cole and Flam are always going to be options and Tai always ends up seeing time in at least a few meets. It’ll depend on hitting. That old chestnut.
FLOOR
2019 Event Ranking: 18
| Lineup locks: Kyla Bryant, Chloe Widner, Morgan Hoang, Rachael Flam, |
| Lineup options: Adela Stonecipher, Taylor Lawson, Kaylee Cole, Jade Chrobok, Lauren Navarro |
Floor ranked as Stanford’s strongest event by a wide margin in 2019, though it was also a precarious event in that the same six people competed floor in every single meet. There weren’t a lot of options to play around with (any?), and the team has lost Hailee Hoffman from last year’s sextet.
The freshmen should help that depth problem. Widner has a strong DLO, Stonecipher brings a full-in on what is my preferred event for her, and Chrobok will present an option as well. Bryant, Hoang, Flam, Lawson, and Cole all managed to get the scores required of them last year—Bryant and Hoang being the strongest and most likely to 9.9—so with that injection of new blood, Stanford should have a hearty enough collection to both improve the scoring potential from last year and enjoy the luxury to experiment and rest people a little bit more.
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2021