Live Blog

Live from the Collegiate Challenge – Session 2

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Links for the whole day here

Saturday, January 4
 Scores Stream
4:00pm ET/1:00pm PT – [7] Denver, [13] Auburn, [21] Arizona State, [25] Penn State @ Collegiate Challenge   FLO
5:00pm ET/2:00pm PT – Illinois, SEMO @ [16] Missouri LINK SEC+
6:00pm ET/3:00pm PT – New Hampshire @ Illinois State LINK FREE
9:30pm ET/6:30pm PT – [1] Oklahoma, [4] UCLA, [9] Cal, [22] Stanford @ Collegiate Challenge   FLO

I’ll try to do scores again as best I can.

We’re currently in the final rotation of warmups. My proximity to the podium means I know exactly who told KJ they had to pee before the rotation started. Yes, my position also means most of my observations are about the bathroom. It’s the happenin’ place you guys. Who knew?

Kyla just stuck her final warmup 1.5 on vault. So probably wasted it. Hano and Kramer also doing 1.5s. Frazier doing fulls.

We’re now in the “extended costume change” portion of the evening.

Jessica is currently delighting in reading through the first session live blog and finding the spelling errors (or the “what did you mean when you wrote “naive” during Ruiz’s beam routine, and I’m like no idea). So that’s happening.

Amanda telling us that MANY ARE WONDERING who will go viral from this meet pllellleleleeease.

Kyla just barely defeated Maggie and Ragan in the clap-o-meter intro competition. Because that’s what it’s really all about.

Jade Chrobok is the winner of the Having a Walking Boot and Trying to Keep Up with the Walking competition for the second session.

Ragan Smith is in the AA for Oklahoma.

UCLA is adorned in Saved By The Bell Opening Credits.

Rotation 1

Smith – VT – OU – a little short on her full, but only a small hop forward – the usual leg break on block

Hano – UB – UCLA – short first hs – Ray, coaught and connection to overshoot – arch on cast on high but pulls it back – finishes with stuck double tuck

Stern with a lunge forward landing her Y1.5.

Strong hit on beam from Talitha Jones for Cal with stuck landing.

Hit Y1.5 for Degouveia, also lunge forward. 9.800

9.850 for Hano.

Webb – VT – OU – comes up just a hair short on her 1.5, small step/slide back.

9.775 for Jones, 9.825 for Lawson on floor. Steele on bars, flings out her DLO a little, shortish with a hop. Nice on the bars.

9.900 for Webb. Nichols follows her with a hop forward on her 1.5. 9.875

9.800 for Steele.

Schoepfer finished out the vault lineup for OU with a strong Y1.5 tucked, nearly got the stick, hopped forward

Kooyman – SHap to Pak a little whippy but fine – very short on hs on low bar and again on high – DLO was much improved, bounce back. 9.825

Clausi with a very secure loso series on beam – struggles on her switch side, doesn’t get all the way to split and leans forward – finishes 1.5 with a bound.

Frazier on UB with a solid Shap 1/2, finishes DLO, a little slide back on this one, she was sticking them in warmups.

9.650 for Clausi

9.950 for Frazier is a little much.

George on beam gets her aerial to back tuck combination.

Widner debuts with 9.800 on floor.

Flatley – UB -good first hs – higgins turn a bit late into jaeger – a couple handstands in here – bail a touch rushed but pretty – regular DLO (good) small hop back. Some refining to do, but also the usual pretty moments.

Big important 9.900 for George on beam for Cal. 9.875 for Flatley

Bordas a little tentative on her aerial to split, lean check afterward

Kyla – UB – shap to bail – arches the bail but pulls it back – nailed her DLO at the end. Not one of her 10s but will be a huge score. 9.925.

Bryant – FX – Stanford -fab full in, super high, bounce back – front tuck through to double pike, same landing, great power, bounce back – switch side to popaopen double tuck ewas excellent, good control – 9.900

Sanchez doing ex for UCLA on bars.

Quinn finishes for Cal on beam – stuck her dismount. She got a 9.8 start for this one though.

Cole 9.800 for Stanford

Watterson doing beam exhibition, kind of waving a wobble-town time. But it wasn’t an 8.150! So it’s a win! It’s even a 9.725.

UCLA will lead after the first rotation, just waiting on a couple scores from beam that I missed.

It’s UCLA on 49.425, Oklahoma 49.200, Stanford 49.150 (?!?!?!) and Cal 48.800.

Rotation 2

DeSouza – FX – Cal – a little bouncy on double pike but good – finishes with a bit of bounciness on a rudi. 9.800

G Glenn – BB – UCLA – bhs loso series, huge break and falls – whaaaa?

Thomas first up on bars for OU was a little angled on a bail and didn’t stick her dismount, otherwise fine. 9.825

Cole 9.650 VT

Bryant bounces way back on a full for Stanford for 9.650. 9.725 for Flam on Omel with a bound.

Degouveia doing her bars debut, pretty pak – nice toe point of course – well looks like she has the dismount down now, small hop on FTDT. 9.875

9.075 for Glenn. Hano next – and she falls immediately on her series as well. OK now. UCLA counting a fall on beam.

Draper also appears to have been transformed into a bars worker, hop on double front. 9.850

Quinn – FX – goes for the front 2/1, a little under-rotated with a crossover step – better control on front lay to front full to stag –

Webb gorgeous on her Pak as always on bars – hits Shap 1/2 – toe 1/2 to double front 1/2 out, bounce back

Poston – BB – UCLA – beat jump to straddle 3/4, secure – bhs bhs loso, only the smallest lean – 1.5 dismount, hop forward.

9.900 for Webb. 9.550 for Brunette

Ragan Smith on bars with a hit. She was pretty whippy on her DLO but pulled it around with only a little hop. 9.950. OK now.

Bordas brings out her full-in on floor – hits with, chest down –

Nichols – Tkatchev to pak, brilliant – a little short on a low bar hs – small leg break on sha 1/2 – DLO stunning. 9.975 for Nichols. I had two deductions in there

Frazier – BB – hits her opening leap series – a little slow on her front to back combination, so we’ll see what happens. Side aerial to beat jump – bhs 2/1, stuck it with some feet.

9.825 for Bordas

Clausi – FX – full in with a hop to the side – back 1.5 to front full with a dance out – double tuck, bounce back

9.775 for Frazier

Sakti – BB – UCLA – standing loso loso series, very solid – switch 1/2 to beat, a little short of split – full turn – side somi, smallest correction – side aerial to full, small movement. Good. 9.950 is too high though.

9.850 for Clausi

Mastrangelo – FX – full-in, hits it, lands forward with a lunge – 1.5 to front tuck, slide – 2.5 final pass, some leggs, crossover step

Ross – BB – hits loso series solidly – switch ring to beat, has to work a little to connect that but solid it – full turn, a little control – aerial to sissone, very pretty – side aerial to a stuck full. I had a couple borderlineish things in there, so I don’t think you can go 10, but I wouldn’t be shocked because of course I wouldn’t be.

9.500 Mastrangelo.

Both judges 9.950 for Ross. Sensible.

Oklahoma’s massive 49.5+ bars score and UCLA’s counting beam fall, well, you know the story.

Emma Andres did exhibition beam for UCLA.

Scoring page updated after two rotations.

Rotation 3

Flatley starts with a hit rudi – goes for a front 2/1 second pass and falls

Hit leadoff beam for Thomas for OU.

Lawson 9.750 bars for Stanford.

Cal with good control on the first two vaults from Jones and Bordas, only minimal movement. 9.825 for Bordas

9.250 Flatley.

Thomas 9.850, Waguespack bars 9.775

A lordly Yfull from George on vault.

Dennis starts on floor with just a double tuck, very strong landing. split leap 15 to split jump full, come indistinct landing position. 1.5 to layout, some knees, strong showing.

Clausi – VT – nice 1.5, just a bit of knees and a small hop. Desouza follows, hits her Y1.5, a larger bounce forward, but strong. 9.775

Brunnete 9.775 bars, Dunn 9.750 beam, Denis 9.850 floor.

Quinn shows good disntance on a full, hop in place and some knees. 9.800

9.825 widner bars –

Tratz a bit short on her full in, lunge forward – finishes with a secure double tuck.

Apparnetly I missed Kyla Bryant getting 9.950 on bars. I blame the entire UCLA team standing between me and bars.

Webb – BB – OU – bhs loso series, very solid – aerial to split jump, secure – side aerial to full, a little off line but controlled the landing

Kramer hits her front 2/1 to front pike, only the slightest bit slidey on landing – 1.5 to layout, solid – rudi to stretch jump is good. Her usual. 9.900.

Smith – BB – OU – going at the same time as Frazier on floor – bhs loso series, solid – aerial to straddle, excellent – straddle jump 1/2 to korbut, works – bhs gainer full, hop to the side. Near perfection until the dismount. 9.900

Frazier – FX – UCLA – very secure on full-in, not the telltale slide from her first year – double tuck, a little bounce – double pike, very strong – blowing kisses to the crowd as part of her choreography and rose queening it up. 9.925

Nichols – BB – OU – aerial, check, breaks connection – bhs loso series, secure – kickover front to Korbut, got the connection there and KJ is thrilled right in front of me – 1.5, leans to hold the stick –

Ross – FX – UCLA – whip to double tuck, very solid – 1.5 to front lay, just a little whippy – double pike, nicely done. Good landing control.

Do you think they put Dom in the opposite corner for the final pass so that the gymnasts get that little bit of extra energy?

9.950 for Ross. 9.850 for Nichols.

147.975 for Oklahoma, 147.350 for UCLA, 146.975 for Cal, 146.775 for Stanford.

Rotation 4

Desouza – UB – Cal – good piked jaerg, a little elbows into overshoot – one short hs on high – huge FTDT and holds the stick with a little chest position. 9.850

Draper – FX – OU – double pike, good, just a little bit of movement – switch 1/2 to popa –

Dennis tries to sell the stick a little on her full, great of course, a little short with a lean –

George – UB – Cal – second half – good bail – finishes with his hs on high and another stuck FTDT with a little lean. Good. 9.900

Poston hits her front hs pike 1/2, deep and some chest, slide back. 9.775

Smith – FX – OU – double tuck, no trouble for her – 1.5 to front lay, comfortably dances out switch side to wolf full – short final pass with a hop. 9.775

Frazier hope back on a full – 9.825

Kuc a little more tentative than she can be on handstands but hits for 9.800.

Kramer hits her 1.5, a little knees, a hop, but one of her better landings. 9.825

Watterson comes up a little short this time on her toe full to double tuck with a hop. The rest lovely.

Ross cannot control the 1.5 in competition, bounce forward.Hano follows with a smaller hop on hers.

Degouveia gets her front 2/1 around – finishes with 1.5 to front full, hop forward, looks like she just stayed in?

Bordas was almost too high for her own good on her jaeger but she caught it – finishes giant full to stuck double tuck.

9.875 Degouveia.

9.900 for Ross, 9.850 for Hano. OK.

Maya Green a hair close on her huge gienger – but finishes with yet another stuck FTDT. Good finish to the meet for Cal on its best event. 9.850

It’s 9.850 for LaPinta in the 4th position for OU.

Webb – FX – OU – front 2/1 is solid – 1.5 to front full, controlled step – split leap full to jump full, a bit under – rudi, strong. 9.900

Nichols – FX – OU – through to double tuck, controls her step back – 1.5 to front loso, smooth – switch ring to split leap full, very strong – double pike, secure, chest a bit down. Strong routine. 9.925.

Just Kyla Bryant for Stanford on beam left. (In exhibition, apparently) She follows a 9.775 from Navarro. Good full turn – bhs loso series, nice feet, very strong – beat to change leg split, nice – nearly wobbles on choreo, dont’ worry about it – punch front, step forward – double tuck, hop back. Very strong.

197.350 for Oklahoma will win the meet, UCLA will take 2nd, Cal third and Stanford 4th. UCLA 196.575, Cal 196.200, Stanford 195.475.

Honestly everyone will be OK with this meet. Oklahoma the lone 197 so far. UCLA mid 196s with a counting fall and a pretty traditional UCLA opener. The won’t keep the score, but you know. No Kocian is a concern.

Cal is one of not very many teams to have gone 196 in the first weekend, and Stanford getting a mid 195 road score for the first meet means we should be working with less NQS anxiety than in the last couple years.

59 thoughts on “Live from the Collegiate Challenge – Session 2”

  2. Has Frazier been training a 10.0 SV vault this season? I don’t recall seeing any training videos of that from this year.

  3. OU lineups just posted on Twitter don’t include Trautman … but she was their model for the leo-of-the-night pic

    1. According to UCLA’s Twitter, she isn’t competing tonight. Some on Twitter are saying that she has been having shoulder problems.

      1. Oh, I would hate that for her. She deserves one fully healthy NCAA season!

      1. maddie never seems to catch a break with the injuries 🙁 it would suck if her freshman year was the best and injury free

      2. She caught enough of a break to make it to two Worlds and an Olympics so she’s doing a better than many gymnasts… but it’s true she’s had a LOT of setbacks.

    3. She’s not in any of the posted lineups. So, yep. Concerned for her health status.

    4. UCLA posted their lineups on Twitter do it seems she isn’t competing today.

    5. I read in several places that she won’t be competing bars at all this season bc of her shoulder. She is supposed to be in the beam and floor lineups, not sure why she isn’t tonight.

    1. Must be precautionary or slight injury. Of course Trautman would be in the lineups otherwise.

    3. She twisted her ankle during the intrasquad in Dec. Maybe it’s precautionary. ? ?

  6. Looks lik scores are definitely trending upward from yesterday’s meets. Arching backs and slides etc and still mid and high 9.8’s and low 9.9’s. We expected it but were hoping for parity

  7. It’s getting so frustrating watching UCLA. This is a big meet against a big rival of theirs, and they put out weird lineups? No Dennis on bars, No Flatley on beam, Hano and Poston on beam, Kooyman on bars. I want to like them but it’s getting so hard to.

    2. Is it because you feel like they should go full firepower against Oklahoma for some reason? It’s the first meet of the season… seems like exactly the right time to try things out.

    3. That was the FIRST MEET OF THE SEASON! This is EXACTLY the time to test out lineups. Jeesh 🤦‍♀️

  9. Setting up the rankings already. I know OU and UCLA are super talented but the judges are not taking the Same level of deductions as other first meets. I mean really 9.975 for Maggie with off hand stands. It’s already a joke

  10. Setting up the rankings already. I know OU and UCLA are super talented but the judges are not taking the Same level of deductions as other first meets. I mean really 9.975 for Maggie with off hand stands. It’s already a joke Judging needs to be level across regions

  11. I guess it’s time to complain about judging again. There’s no point in whining about it because it will never change no matter how much you complain. And we all know.

    2. It probably won’t change from complaining about it on the BBS but NCAA gym does periodically overhaul judging so it’s not inevitable that all routines will one day be only either a 9.9 or a 10.

    3. What bothers me about the Carol-ness of the sport is not the top teams getting undeserved tens, but rather the lower-ranked teams getting blatant leotard deductions which creates a general aura of “WTF, is this even a real sport?” Which in turn puts a target on the back of gymnastics programs that could be a problem for schools with budget crises that find they need to cut a team or two.

  15. Actually with Denver’s 196.7 from the first session it’s 1. Oklahoma 2. Denver 3. UCLA

  16. I think the judging might have been fairly reasonable
    Today – outside of uneven bars…that got a little high too quickly

  17. Predicting the Final Four of 2020:
    Oklahoma, Denver, Michigan and Alabama

    Other teams to make Nationals:
    Florida, UCLA, LSU, Cal

    1. My final four:
      Oklahoma, Florida, UCLA, Denver

      Others:
      LSU, Alabama, Michigan, Cal

      1. I think final four will be Oklahoma, UCLA, Florida, and Michigan.
        The others will be LSU, Denver, Minnesota, and Utah.

      2. Of course UCLA will be in the final 4 if their scores keep escalating. there were blatant score inflations ie flatly a 9.875 on UB with short hand stands and a hop; Ross a 9.9 with an uncontrolled hop on vault; Kooy 9.825 whippy and short HS on UB; and Sakti a ridiculous 9.95 with obvious corrections – compare to other meets ie ISA with one short landing and drops into the 9.7’s on FX – Its as if they are selecting the final 4 now. Everyone knows that scores are going to go up from here. Streaming other meets on Friday I was impressed that the scoring had tightened up but I guess UCLA and OK are exempt. Too bad, was looking forward to a different type of year. All Hail Carol!!

      1. I agree it seems preposterous but Florida, Oregon State, and to an extent Denver all surprised me last year, so let the person have some fun with a real wild guess.

      2. The thing I like most about the new format is that, as we saw last year, there are finally real consequences to a top team having a bad day.

  18. Anyone know why Poston’s beam was a 9.6? Looked better than that, but I didn’t have a good angle from where I was.

  19. A 10 at this meet and it didn’t even go to OU or UCLA! Would not have pegged that going in.

  20. This is random, but I just found out that Alicia Sacramone competed college gymnastics and looked up her scores. How was she such a mediocre NCAA gymnast???

    1. I mean, obviously Sacramone was not a mediocre gymnast, NCAA or otherwise. If memory serves, her lower scores were for a few different reasons: (1) NCAA was not her primary focus (she trained elite concurrently), (2) something happened between the 2004 and 2005 seasons to lower scores across the board and it took a few years for them to build back up (by which point she’d gone pro), (3) she competed for Brown, so she was mainly at meets that had stricter scoring standards, and (4) she was miles ahead of her teammates, so Alicia couldn’t benefit from score-building in the way that say, Kupets did.

      Other old gym nerds: do you remember what the rule change was after 2004 that caused NCAA scores to drop as much as they did? It was something about the judging assignment system but I forget the specifics.

      1. Thank you for the information. I wasn’t trying to diminish her in anyway, I was just curious how a gymnast of her caliber had her NCAA scores.

      2. Kupets was the real deal in NCAA. No build up was necessary. She also had an uncanny ability to hit when it mattered.

        IIRC Alicia did pretty high difficulty and took the deductions. Kupets kept her difficulty on ub and beam but had NCAA high difficulty not elite difficulty on it and FX.

    2. No argument on Kupets’ ability, but when you’re the anchor in a lineup where the first 2-3 routines score in the 9.4-9.6 range, the judges are less likely to throw out the big numbers for a spectacular anchor routine, even if it’s deserved.

    3. She wasn’t a mediocre gymnast in the NCAA! She only competed for one year, in case you didn’t know. As a freshman she broke all the Brown scoring records and also swept the AA and EF at the Ivy League Championships-which had never happened before. She went to the NCAA Northeast Regionals in 2007 and won FX, which qualified her to Nationals on that event. She was an alternate for the NCAA as an AAer as she finished third out of the non-qualifying teams (Michigan/Florida advanced) and only top 2 made it to Nats. She finished right behind Casey Jo Magee who was a talented AAer from Arkansas.
      At NCAAs she just missed the FX finals, which was unfortunate because she scored a 9.850 in session 1, which was the 3rd best score (9th place in the session), but only top 4 scores plus ties made it in (9.950- Kupets and 9.900- 7 athletes total of 8 gymnastics), so Sacramone was eliminated. What was a further disappointment is that a 9.850 in the second session was enough to qualify to floor finals, as 8 gymnasts qualified from the second session. Had Sacramone been in the 2nd session her 9.850 would have made it to event finals. Not to mention she got a 9.850 in the first session where scores tended to be tighter. 18 gymnasts made it to FX finals. That was the unfairness of NCAA rules though- many teams were 4th in a session but out because only top three teams from each session advance, and often the 4th ranked team had a better score than the 3rd place team in the other session.
      Considering that she pretty much did her elite routines with a few tweaks and was training elite full time at Breystans while she was going to school and also competing for Brown, she did exceptionally well. She could have done less difficulty and gone for clean, stuck routines, but chose to continue using elite skills. For example she opened FX with a triple full and she did her layout on BB. She went professional after Worlds in 2007, so she only did one year in NCAA- hence the “mediocre results”.
      Alicia wasn’t super serious about NCAA, she did it for fun while she continued to train for 2008. She went to Brown specifically so she could stay at Brestyans (one hour commute), but Alicia could have competed at any top level NCAA team if she wanted, she was highly recruited. IIRC correctly she was planning on UCLA originally and was also offered scholarship at UGA, Alabama, and Florida. Her scores would have improved if she was at a top tier school. There is almost no video of Sacramone’s NCAA career because Brown was not a school that got TV coverage being 67th ranked in the country.

      1. Sacramone was not on scholarship IIRC because Brown didn’t offer it for gymnastics
        Also of note that at the time, Alicia was the first USA/NCAA athlete at the time to train both NCAA AND elite concurrently since Kelly Garrison-Steves in the 80s. Only a handful of US gymnastics have done elite while also in NCAA. Besides these two, only Vanessa Zamarripa, Mackenzie Caquatto, and Trinity Thomas have done NCAA and elite simultaneously.
        Other NCAA athletes that have simultaneously done both NCAA and elite are Courtney McGreggor (BSU/NZL), Jessica Lopez (DEN/VEN), Britney Rogers (UGA/CAN), and Shallon Olsen (BAMA/CAN). I am sure there are other international athletes that are doing elite and NCAA just can’t recall at the moment.
        Obviously it is more challenging to do NCAA and Elite in the USA due to USA’s depth at the elite level.

      2. Add Kate Richardson (Canada) to the list of NCAA and elite careers simultaneously – she went to the 2004 Olympics in between her sophomore and junior years at UCLA. I believe she was the first since Kelly Garrison to make the Olympics while competing NCAA (since then López and Rogers have also done so and Olsen is also likely to).

    4. Alicia was wonderful, but controlled landings were never her strong suit, and I vaguely recall that she had a knee or ankle thing going on.

  21. I wasn’t trying to offend anyone by calling her college results mediocre, I simply didn’t understand why one of the greatest US gymnasts of all time wasn’t consistently scoring 9.9+ especially on vault, beam, and floor. Now that I know the circumstances, it certainly makes sense. Thank you for your helpfulness!

    1. Isn’t it amazing how your school and the gymnasts that precede you in a lineup make such an impact on your scoring potential? It shouldn’t be that way, but sadly that’s been the norm for decades.

    2. Sacramone was vaulting a handspring only for the first half of the season, which is why you’ll see VT scores in the mid 8s for her. Her last AA at a tri meet she scored 39.425 (9.900, 9.850, 9.750, 9.925)

      But it’s also interesting how the judges are not willing to give a BB routine with high difficulty more than a 9.750 with a few minor errors when the rest of the field on BB is 9.500 or below.

      The ECAC is not a power house league and neither is the Ivy League

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