The Nail-Biters

Brown (194.300)
defeated
Yale (194.275)

Ivy Fight! Ivy Fight! Ivy Fight! The weekend’s closest contest was the Pretending I Don’t Remember My SAT Score Derby, which came down to the final routine and a mere quarter tenth as the visiting Brown Bears defeated the Y6le Bulldogs.

Yale took a big old 0.8 lead to the second half of the meet, thanks largely to bars where sophomore Ellie Kearns stuck a giant full to double tuck dismount for 9.875. But in rotation 3, things took a turn. Yale counted a fall on beam when a dastardly split-jump 3/4 sent Morgan Brueck head-first into the abyss, allowing Brown to move in front with a hit floor rotation.

But Brown’s new lead was a mere .150, and after four routines of the final rotation, Yale had already snatched it right back. Until Lindsay Yang happened. Competing fifth on beam for Brown, Yang went up and hit a wolf triple, onodi, and loso series like she’s ready to make the 2014 worlds team from WOGA. She scored 9.925, tying the problem record with the highest Brown beam score of the last 25 years and sending the pressure right back Yale’s way.

Still, Ella Tashjian competed in the final spot for Yale on floor with a chance to win it, needing 9.800 to tie and 9.825 to take the meet outright—a mark she has reached 13 times in the last two seasons. This routine maybe-could have-might have done it, but it was probably low chest position on her double back third pass (*two-pass routines cackle quietly in the corner*) that sent her a 9.775 and put Yale just behind the victorious Brown team.

Florida (197.425)
defeated
Alabama (197.275)

This one had an unusual start. The #1-ranked Florida Gators hosted Alabama for an SEC dual meet that seemed poised to have both teams swimming in money bins full of 199s, but then Florida opened the meet by ice skating right into the arms of Adrian Burde on nearly all their Y1.5 landings for just 49.175.

With a stick-fest on bars (and a second straight meet with a 9.975), Alabama opened up a surprising lead of nearly four tenths after the first rotation, which Florida had to fight against for the rest of the competition. Always attuned to the virtues of charity and community service, however, the classy ladies of Alabama immediately went to vault and did the exact same thing as Florida to allow the Gators the chance to get back into it.

Which they did. But not all that smoothly. After a mostly comfortable beam rotation with three 9.9s, it seemed to all the world (aka, a dozen of us dorks) like Florida would end up cruising to the win and erasing that early hiccup, but the door was always left ajar. A Danie Ferris fall and Skye Blakely OOB kept Florida’s floor score nearly as stunted as vault, which meant that Alabama could very believably have won the meet on beam. A doable 9.875 from Gladieux’s anchor routine would have been enough, if not for that unfortunate lightning storm in the middle of her aerial.

After a leadoff fall from Cawley, Gladieux’s beam had to count, which gave Florida exactly the buffer they needed to sneak a win despite two off rotations.

Utah State (195.700)
defeated
Southern Utah (195.550)

This intra-Utah clash was a win for the “I’m just rooting for both teams to be proud of themselves” crowd, with neither squad counting an error in this evenly matched dual decided by fine margins of execution rather than mistakes.

Ultimately, the host Utah State took the win, enjoying the largest advantage on vault by counting nothing lower than 9.750 while Southern Utah had to deal with a couple 9.6s.

Southern Utah made a valiant push in the final rotation with a meet-best 49.100 on beam as Marisa de Groot hit in the anchor position to erase an earlier fall from Bringhurst and bring us into full nail-biter territory.

At least, for the viewers. Isabella Vater’s 4th-up floor routine for Utah State was just a blank on the scoreboard, so it was not immediately clear what the running totals were or what score anyone needed for anything (sports!), which is one way to keep things exciting. In the end, Utah State did just enough on floor to take the win by a tenth and a half.

NC State (196.125)
defeated
Clemson (195.925)

You want late drama, we got it. The visiting Clemson squad took a non-small lead of .425 to the final rotation at NC State, and when NC State then had a fall from Adler in the leadoff spot on floor, this one seemed to be heading in a specific direction. An orange direction.

But then Clemson started watching hit-for-9.7 after hit-for-9.7 come up on the scoreboard on beam as the lead slowly seeped away with each routine. To the outside observer, Clemson’s lineup looked affected by the abrupt tightening of the competition, to the point where both Cesario and Kuhl in the last two beam spots had balance checks on standing still. When the judges had an extended conference about exactly how much they wanted to smush Cesario’s beam, you knew Clemson was done for.

From being in a position where they needed to pull out some magic on floor, NC State suddenly found themselves just needing to pull out a stay-upright on the final floor routines to clinch the win. That the routines for Hadrick and Thomas were both 9.900 ended up being mere icing.

Central Michigan (195.000)
defeated
Western Michigan (194.675)

This one didn’t know whether it was coming or going as the lead flip-flopped after every rotation. After the first rotation, Western Michigan led by .275, but then Central Michigan’s Lia Kmieciak came back from falling on a Yurchenko full to cling onto a DLO stick on bars for 9.900. That helped CMU score a meet-best 49.150 to snatch a lead of .125 at halfway.

Things flipped again when most of the Central Michigan beam lineup needed to get seasick over the starboard bow, and Luciana Alvarado-Reid briefly considered doing a tribute to that time she took a knee at the end of her floor routine in Tokyo.

Yada yada yada, the lead jumped back into Western Michigan’s hands by .375 after three events. But then, WMU had its own vivid anxiety dream on beam, and after all that we ended up with the hosts Central Michigan winning by .325.

Georgia (197.200)
defeated
LSU (196.850)

The headline upset of the weekend belonged to Georgia, scoring a second-straight 197 to open the season and taking out an LSU team that has technically started the season with two conference losses (if you consider the Sprouts tiebreak against Oklahoma real). Georgia turned heads in preseason, certainly looking capable of outperforming some of the top SEC teams for the first time in a while, even though the result in this case was more due to LSU’s mistakes than anything else.

Things started to go wrong for LSU in the middle of rotation 2 on vault, when Victoria Roberts bounced away on her handspring pike 1/2 and then Kathryn Weilbacher debuted with a Yfull and a similarly rubber-infused landing. That allowed Georgia to take a slight lead into rotation 3, the rotation that would define the meet.

On floor for LSU, Konnor McClain fell on a short 1.5 + front 1/1 combo, and then Amari Drayton went searching the dunes for water on her connected double back for a 9.575 that had to count.

Concurrently, Georgia was working against its own fall on beam from Anya Turner but ended up not having to count a low score after squeezing through a tentative connection adventure on the remaining four routines for 49.200.

That gave Georgia a lead of .325 heading to floor, where a comfortably hit rotation meant LSU never really got another look despite a mostly strong finish on beam.

Oklahoma (197.425)
defeated
Missouri (196.925)

This one started with a minor Oklahoma panic attack. A 49.100 is Oklahoma for “panic attack.” Deliciously shrewd bars judging saddled the Sooners with their lowest UB score in 10 years after an average hit rotation, which meant Missouri owned a two-tenth lead after the first event.

At this point, the most eager of upset-alert alarms will have begun to sound, but the thing is, Missouri then had to move to those same bars in rotation two and scored a hit 48.825, which gave Oklahoma a lead that would never be relinquished.

That doesn’t mean it was full cruise control. Missouri did end up winning the second half of the meet, using double pike powers to outscore the somewhat scraggly landing control from Oklahoma on floor. Of note, neither Oklahoma nor UCLA currently rank in the top 10 on floor.

That Was Kind of Close

Denver (195.850)
defeated
Texas Woman’s (195.275)
Arizona (193.350)

Despite not winning, DII Texas Woman’s was the story of this meet. The team continues to make waves early in the 2026 season, defeating Pitt last week and then defeating Arizona this week and keeping things relatively competitive with Denver. TWU currently ranks 27th nationally, tied with Arizona State and just behind Oregon State, which is unlikely to hold but would be quite a thing if it did. Denver hit enough routines to stay afloat despite the 195, while Arizona had a pretend-it-never-happened meet with three straight falls to finish the bars rotation, along with a counting fall on beam.

Cal (195.550)
defeated
Pitt (194.975)

Neither team will love the score coming out of this one, but Cal did pull out the win thanks in large part to a bars rotation that continues to excel. Floor was the bad seed in this one, starting with Jayden Silvers having to spend 94 minutes with her right hand over her head waiting for her music to start, and then another 94 minutes waiting for the judges to decide that she put that same hand down on her final pass. That, followed by two OOBs, kept the overall total down. Pitt got a full blast of the travails of college gymnastics, not counting a fall this week and yet scoring significantly lower than last week with a beam miss.

Eastern Michigan (193.900)
defeated
Northern Illinois (193.200)
Brockport (191.100)

This one was a mixed bag for all three teams. Both the victorious Eastern Michigan and the middle-child Northern Illinois showed significant improvements on their opening meets (EMU by about a point, NIU by about a point and a half) but also both still counted misses. They’re currently ranked in the 50s, so they’re going to need to make another big scoring jump with a hit meet.

For Brockport, 191 is a very solid DIII score on its surface, but a missed rotation on bars prevented this from becoming a huge one that could have challenged the 193 zone. Brockport will have realistic dreams of winning the DIII championship this year so will look at the 192s coming from La Crosse and Oshkosh right now as the goal scores.

Iowa (196.400)
defeated
Michigan State (195.675)

Michigan State’s surprisingly slow start to the season continued in this one with more unexpected errors from the team’s top gymnasts. This time, the tires blew in the very first rotation on bars when Nikki Smith fell on a Pak and Olivia Zsarmani casted over on a handstand, giving the team a 48.5 they couldn’t recover from as Iowa continued to find the solidity, execution, and stuck landings they needed to score the upset.

Minnesota (197.150)
defeated
Michigan (196.375)

Unlike Michigan State’s loss, which was easily attributable to a counting fall, Michigan’s meet didn’t seem to be going all that poorly…and then suddenly they lost to Minnesota by way more than a fall. Minnesota consistently out-landing-controlled Michigan across the events, while Michigan’s biggest missed opportunity to make this a meet came on floor, when we all discovered that short landings on double backs actually can be deducted (alert the media) and the Jahzara Ranger 9.625 had to count because of Audrey Sanger’s earlier near-fall on a combination pass.

Stanford (197.225)
defeated
North Carolina (196.400)

Stanford tried to give North Carolina a glimmer of hope with a 48.775 on vault but picked up a fairly significant margin by the end of the meet, going over 198 pace on beam and floor. Anna Roberts showed the best executed floor routine of the year for 9.975, and both teams appreciated that deductions were optional on beam, at least unless you tried to bring a camel spin into a gymnastics.

North Carolina lost by a bundle yet will be overjoyed with how things are scoring with two straight mid-196s to start the season.

A Clear Victor

Maryland (194.625) d. Washington (193.575)

Maryland had three misses on floor and still won by more than a point

SEMO (193.350) d. Illinois State (192.300), Centenary (185.700), Fisk (183.525), Wilberforce (176.875)

SEMO hit the 49.000 mark on beam to take the win in Chicago

Arkansas (197.250) d. Auburn (196.075)

Lauren Williams (VT) got the 18th 9.975 in Arkansas history—still without a 10—while Auburn had a cast handstand apocalypse on bars to give Arkansas a surprisingly hefty margin of victory

San Jose State (195.075) d. UC Davis (193.850)

San Jose overcame an iffy opening rotation on bars this week to settle in and defeat a stretched Davis team that was able to put up only five on floor.

BYU (196.300) d. Boise State (195.025)

BYU scored five 9.9s (three straight to finish the meet) for its first 196 of the season

New Hampshire (195.275) d. Air Force (193.950), Iowa State (192.900), Bridgeport (191.800)

A 24-for-24 hit for New Hampshire delivered the home win over an Air Force team that stayed close on vault and floor but counted a fall on beam

Arizona State (195.750) d. Kentucky (194.325)

Kentucky had four-alarm chili on beam this week with falls in the 2, 3, 4, and 5 spots for a second straight 194 to open the season

Ithaca (189.950) d. Ursinus (188.475)

Grace Murray of Ithaca tied a program vault record last week and nearly got there on floor this week with a 9.850, while Erin Roe tied for third on the Ursinus all-time AA list with 38.500

It’s a Blowout

Ohio State (195.750) d. Rutgers (194.100)

Penn State (196.075) d. Illinois (194.100)

Winona State (190.625) d. Eau Claire (188.650), Gustavus Adolphus (182.550)

Ball State (195.225) d. Bowling Green (193.200)

UCLA (197.325) d. Nebraska (195.250)

Temple (194.150) d. LIU (191.825)

Whitewater (191.275) d. Simpson (188.875)

Penn (194.075) d.West Chester (191.600), George Washington (191.375), Cornell (191.325)

Oregon State (196.375) d. Sacramento State (193.675)

Kent State (194.925) d. West Virginia (192.025), Fisk (188.975)

La Crosse (192.425) d. Greenville (188.650)

Southern Connecticut (191.375) d. Springfield (187.475), Rhode Island (187.325), Utica (185.850)

Illinois State (193.700) d. Centenary (185.575)

Oshkosh (191.875) d. Hamline (175.525)