[wptb id=95709]

Ranking History
2022 – 18th
2021 – 6th
2020 – 6th
2019 – 2nd
2018 – 4th
2017 – 2nd
2016 – 2nd
2015 – 10th
2014 – 3rd
2013 – 5th
2012 – 9th

Where 2022 Finished…

So it didn’t turn out…awesome. A favorite to advance to nationals at least, LSU had its 2022 season prematurely cut short in the regional semifinal when a counting beam fall and some compounding bars problems (and a limited Haleigh Bryant) saw the Tigers lose to both Missouri and Iowa and get eliminated before the round of 16, ending with one of the team’s weakest-ever results in 18th place.

While that actual 18th place will be filed under “just one of those things,” the more pressing issue for LSU is that the team was sort of 5th-7th in the hierarchy all season long, which again mimicked the 6th-place finish from 2021. It’s not bad, but it’s also not exactly the goal a program like LSU will have for itself, especially after all those seasons of 2nd place and expecting a championship. The question for 2023 isn’t whether LSU will be better than 18th. It will be. The question is whether LSU can be better than 6th, which has been the constant status so far in the Jay Clark era (extending right to this year’s preseason coaches poll).

Gains and Losses

LOST	GAINED
Sarah Edwards – VT, FX	Cammy Hall
Christina Desiderio – BB, FX	Annie Beard
Sami Durante – UB (VT, BB)	Ashley Cowan
Bridget Dean – BB	Bryce Wilson
Reagan Campbell – (BB, FX)
Rebecca D’Antonio

The New Ones

LSU has three first-year newcomers, led by Bryce Wilson who has been a staple of Nastia Cups and L10 Nationals for years now. Wilson’s best event has always been vault, which earned her three 10.0s in the 2022 season, but floor is pretty much right up there and also snatched a top-5 finish at nationals this year. While she did not feature in the main six on either event at LSU’s Gym 101 (perhaps slightly concerning), she performed in exhibition positions and her presence in those lineups will be at least a long-term goal if not a short-term goal since Wilson is known as one of the top L10 vault-floor prospects in this year’s class. Beam also should be a legitimate lineup option, and while she did not perform on bars at the 101, it was always a good score for her in L10. We should see by far the most of Wilson among the new LSU gymnasts.   

Ashley Cowan is predominantly a bars gymnast, known for her release amplitude, who won her age group on bars at nationals this year. LSU has at least one spot in that bars lineup that definitely needs filling, and Cowan should be in the race with a couple other gymnasts there. Her next-best event possibility would be floor, where she is a good twister with a front 2/1 in her pocket.

Rounding out the class is Annie Beard, the former Texas Dreams junior elite who has been around the L10 circuit for a few years now post-elite, regularly placing well on vault, beam, and floor. LSU is in need of some new beam routines this year to restock from that graduated class, so if she’s healthy, Beard would pretty much be at the top of the list of possible new beamers.

LSU also welcomed Utah transfer Cammy Hall to the team for her fifth year in 2023. Hall would have ideally provided a lineup Y1.5 on vault, but she will miss the season with injury.

Event by Event

VAULT

2022 Event Ranking: 3

Lineup locks: Haleigh Bryant, Kiya Johnson, KJ Johnson, Aleah Finnegan, Alyona Shchennikova

Lineup options: Bryce Wilson, Elena Arenas, Chase Brock, Alexis Jeffrey

LSU’s hopes to upgrade the vault lineup took a bit of a hit this preseason with Cammy Hall being ruled out. She would have seemed a natural replacement for the lost Y1.5 from Sarah Edwards, but it turns out that 10.0-start replacement is instead going to come from Aleah Finnegan, who showed a very nice Omelianchik at Gym 101 that should now be a lock for the lineup. LSU will also want to develop a lineup routine from Bryce Wilso, especially considering the DTY she wowed with in L10, as that would now seem the best path to upgrading the vault scores. But at least keeping pace with last year’s vaulting seems likely. 

As for the returners, Haleigh Bryant brings her handspring pike 1/2 back, and Kiya Johnson brings her DTY back, so those will be huge scores again. We can assume that Shchennikova’s Y1.5 will be vital again this year, and KJ Johnson’s Yfull was one of the team’s best vault scores last season and should be the same this time. Those four, along with Finnegan and Wilson, probably make up the ideal vault lineup, though Elena Arenas’s full is very clean and sometimes stuck, so any other 10.0 starts or fulls are going to have to be quite reliable to knock her out of the lineup. 

BARS

2022 Event Ranking: 10

Lineup locks: Alyona Shchennikova, Kiya Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, Olivia Dunne

Lineup options: Aleah Finnegan, Alexis Jeffrey, Elena Arenas, Ashley Cowan, Tori Tatum, Chase Brock, Kamryn Ryan

Bars was LSU’s lowest-ranked event in 2022 and has now lost Sami Durante, so there’s some work to do to get back up to conference-winning level on this event. Still, most of last year’s lineup members look like they remain the best available options. Haleigh Bryant came through as a bars star last season for 9.9s almost every week and will be a big deal again this year. Meanwhile, Kiya Johnson will show up with the crispest, most reliable routine on the team in the leadoff spot, probably for 9.825s again, and we’ll spend a lot of time talking about Shchennikova’s double pikeout every time she goes 9.925. Sunrise, sunset, these things all seem like givens. 

Olivia Dunne has been dealing with labrum injuries but looked pretty close to being ready to go on bars at the Gym 101, just doing her dismount separately, so we can probably feel comfortable putting her back into this lineup, where her execution will certainly earn her a spot again as long as she’s healthy.

The best upgrade (slash Durante replacement) option for this lineup will come from Aleah Finnegan, who did one bars routine for 9.850 in 2022 but will probably need to do bars every week in 2023. The piked Deltchev looks great, so as long as she has a consistent dismount, she’d be an obvious choice for the lineup and a contender for one of the best scores. 

The sixth spot looks like kind of a free-for-all right now with a lot of 9.750 gymnastics bumping around, and someone will need to turn into a reliable 9.850+ if LSU is to avoid dropping ground on bars this year. I thought Alexis Jeffrey looked like the best choice at the Gym 101, but they’ll also have Elena Arenas, who ended up in the final lineup last year, and newcomer Ashley Cowan. The mysterious Tori Tatum, a former elite and L10 standout, did also show a bars routine after not competing in 2022.

BEAM

2022 Event Ranking: 5

Lineup locks: Kiya Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, Aleah Finnegan, Kai Rivers

Lineup options: Bryce Wilson, Alyona Shchennikova, Annie Beard, Elena Arenas, KJ Johnson, Sierra Ballard, Olivia Dunne

With the losses of Desiderio, Dean, Campbell, and Durante, LSU’s supply of beam routines took a hit and the depth chart here looks the most different from 2022. Finding out the identities of last couple members of this lineup could be a process.

In the lock department, we have the top three returning scores from last year’s team: Kiya Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, and Aleah Finnegan. They’re the three best beamers on this roster and will be called upon for weekly 9.9s to make sure this event score stays competitive. Because of injury, Kai Rivers is likely to be limited to beam this season, but expect to see her in this lineup because she is the best proven entity among the remaining beamers on the roster with three 9.9s over her eight career beam routines, all hit. Rivers is the most important figure in Operation Restock Beam.

As for the remaining spots in the lineup, we may have another free-for-all. If she’s available, you want Annie Beard in there. Elena Arenas performed two beam routines last season, both for 9.8s, and it looks like Bryce Wilson is going to provide a nominee. Shchennikova is not always the most sure thing on beam (and wouldn’t have received credit for an acro series at the 101), but she has competed a number of times before, and typically for countable scores. LSU also showed off beam routines from a couple unexpected characters in leg-event specialists KJ Johnson and Sierra Ballard, who I would say exceeded expectations in their beam routines but probably don’t have the leaps for huge scores.

As these bars and beam lineups go, so will LSU in 2023. Finding those new athletes to fill the fifth and sixth spots with 9.875s instead of 9.775s will be essential if this is to be a top-4 season.

FLOOR

2022 Event Ranking: 8

Lineup locks: Kiya Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, KJ Johnson, Alyona Shchennikova, Aleah Finnegan

Lineup options: Sierra Ballard, Olivia Dunne, Elena Arenas, Bryce Wilson, Chase Brock

Floor should be among the more predictable (and stronger) events for LSU in 2023, as long as everyone stays healthy enough to compete regularly. The team returns six athletes who all received multiple 9.9s on floor last year in Kiya Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, KJ Johnson, Alyona Shchennikova, Aleah Finnegan, and Olivia Dunne, and I’d contend it’s the most impressive apparatus for Johnson, Johnson, and Shchennikova (and only isn’t for Bryant because her vault is…her vault). You’d be quite happy with those six as floor lineup, and it’s probably the ideal choice for LSU. What curtailed LSU’s floor ranking journey last season was that there always seemed to be someone (or someones) out that week, whether it was Kiya Johnson at the beginning of the season, or Bryant at the end, or Shchennikova for a while in there. The best-case lineup wasn’t all together very often and will need to be together more in 2023.

In terms of other options for the inevitable times when the best-case lineup isn’t together, Sierra Ballard and Elena Arenas both competed last season for 9.7s and will probably be called upon again this season. Ballard’s DLO always does make for a theoretically compelling option, and she was the one who made it into the main six in place of Dunne at the 101, where Bryce Wilson and Chase Brock also showed routines.

[wptb id=95696]

Ranking History
2022 – 8th
2021 – 1st
2020 – 5th
2019 – 5th
2018 – 13th
2017 – 10th
2016 – 11th
2015 – 7th
2014 – 10th
2013 – 7th
2012 – 13th

Where 2022 Finished…

It was always going to be a challenge to repeat 2021’s championship performance in 2022, but Michigan gave it a good run, starting out as the most prepared team and occupying the top spot in the rankings for the first two months of the season. Oklahoma and Florida caught and passed Michigan as we headed toward the meat of the season, but Michigan remained a top-4 team and championship-qualifying favorite going into nationals, where a bars and beam implosion dashed the team’s hopes and saddled Michigan with a fairly unrepresentative 8th-place finish.

In retaining nearly the entire roster from last season, Michigan will expect to improve on 8th in 2023 and return to the top-4 status that these athletes have regularly occupied for the last two years.

Gains and Losses

LOST	GAINED
Abby Brenner – VT, UB, FX	Kaylen Morgan
	Lily Clapper
	Farah Lipetz
	Paige Thaxton

The New Ones

Michigan doesn’t have all that much replacement work to do in terms of lineups but does bring in four new athletes, each with their own significant prior accomplishments. Of note, we saw extremely little from this first-year class at Michigan’s preseason performance, just two routines in exhibition slots and nothing that you would put in a lineup right now. If Michigan doesn’t get a lot out of this class in 2023, that probably wouldn’t be dire since the returning lineups are already hearty, but it would be significant in assessing what Michigan might do in a post-Wojcik/Heiskell/Brooks/Wilson world.

Among Michigan’s new class, Kaylen Morgan‘s is the most recognizable name from her five years as an elite, up to and including the beginning of the 2022 elite calendar. Her most impressive event has always been bars, with an NCAA-ready skill set and handstands, so Michigan will primarily look to get that routine in the mix when fully healthy. Still, all four events should be options. We saw a Yurchenko full from Morgan at the exhibition that Michigan probably doesn’t need right now but exists.

Lily Clapper is the younger sister of Leah, which you’ll know every time you look at a Michigan meet this season and think, “I didn’t know Leah Clapper transferred to Michigan.” She finished 8th AA in her division at L10 Nationals this year, which speaks to her capability on all four. Bars may be her college-iest event—also the one routine we saw from her in the exhibition—but you wouldn’t be shocked if she pulled a Leah and suddenly became indispensable on beam as her career went on.

We didn’t see anything from the other two at the exhibition, but Paige Thaxton is a L10 national bars champion from 2021 in Senior B, who has also worked a Yurchenko 1.5 along with several huge tumbling options and would basically be among the top L10s in the country if you didn’t have to do leaps on beam. So she’s one to keep an eye on. Meanwhile, Farah Lipetz missed the 2022 L10 season but put up top-20 finishes at L10 Nationals in 2021 on bars and beam, her two strongest events.

Event By Event

VAULT

2022 Event Ranking: 1

Lineup locks: Sierra Brooks, Natalie Wojcik, Gabby Wilson, Naomi Morrison, Abby Heiskell

Lineup options: Reyna Guggino, Jenna Mulligan, Kaylen Morgan, Nicoletta Koulos, Paige Thaxton, Jacey Vore, Lily Clapper

Michigan’s All 1.5s All The Time vault lineup spent another season in the top ranking spot in 2022. The only loss from the gang is Abby Brenner (who vaulted three times last season but did not make Michigan’s final lineup), so at this point there’s every reason to expect the same six Yurchenko 1.5s that made Michigan’s vault lineup last season to do so again this season with Guggino, Wojcik, Wilson, Morrison, Heiskell, and Brooks. There are some other theoretical 1.5s on this team, like the one Jacey Vore had as a L10, but since we haven’t seen evidence of those, one would think the idea is to keep the lineup the same. 

Should there be injuries, or questions about Guggino’s consistency, Michigan will have a couple other backups vaulters—Jenna Mulligan’s full is the only other vault that saw competition time last season—but any Yfulls are going to be Plan B.

BARS

2022 Event Ranking: 4

Lineup locks: Natalie Wojcik, Sierra Brooks, Abby Heiskell, Naomi Morrison

Lineup options: Gabby Wilson, Kaylen Morgan, Carly Bauman, Jacey Vore, Nicoletta Koulos, Paige Thaxton, Ashley Lane, Farah Lipetz, Lily Clapper

Michigan will have an interesting dynamic on bars this season because even though there’s not much replacement work absolutely needing to be done here (just the lost routine from Brenner), there are a number of different moving pieces and a variety of options that could end up being part of the best lineup.

No questions will be posed about the top three returning bars scores from Wojcik, Brooks, and Heiskell. You wouldn’t put together any lineup without them. Based on her history of 9.9s, you’d also want Gabby Wilson in this six, but she did not compete bars in the second half of last season and did not show a bars routine in the exhibition, so we’ll have to see what the health status is for that routine. While Naomi Morrison didn’t get quite the same scores on bars last season as the big hitters, she competed pretty much every week, only missed once, and would seem likely to return. Ideally, Michigan will also get a bars routine out of first-year Kaylen Morgan, who would definitely make the lineup based on any assumptions of what her college bars can look like based on elite.

You certainly wouldn’t sneeze at that six, but also contending for spots will be Jacey Vore, who competed most weeks last season and got several 9.9s in there, and Carly Bauman, who is returning from her Achilles injury to make a push for a lineup that she was in during the 2021 season. If it turns out that Wilson and Morgan aren’t available, or aren’t available right away, you’d look to Vore and Bauman as the most likely, useful lineup members.

And then there’s Nicoletta Koulos, who typically serves as an “I can do anything as needed for 9.8ish” option for Michigan—as well as the rest of this bars-heavy new class that really should make its mark on this event. If everyone is healthy, Michigan has some challenging decisions to make in trying to shuffle the pieces of Wilson, Morrison, Morgan, Vore, and Bauman into the last few lineup spots, and if some of the other first years start meet their bars potential, deciding the six could become a real challenge. Which also means there could be potential for a score upgrade.

BEAM

2022 Event Ranking: 11

Lineup locks: Natalie Wojcik, Sierra Brooks, Abby Heiskell, Gabby Wilson

Lineup options: Naomi Morrison, Carly Bauman, Jacey Vore, Reyna Guggino, Nicoletta Koulos, Kaylen Morgan, Lily Clapper, Ashley Lane, Farah Lipetz

Beam is the real puzzler for Michigan because even before the events of the national semifinal last season, it was the team’s lowest-ranked apparatus and most likely to get stuck in the 49.1s and 49.2s. When Oklahoma and Florida are like, “Do you want this 49.7? My tiara vault has too many tiaras in it,” a 49.2 isn’t going to be competitive enough. In 2023, Michigan will look for ways to upgrade the beam lineup, yet theoretically this isn’t lineup that should even need much of an upgrade. Wojcik, Heiskell, Brooks, Wilson, Morrison? On paper, it’s grand. But in practice it ranked 11th.    

In the 2021 season, Carly Bauman was a mainstay in this lineup and received a couple 9.9s, so she looks like the best opportunity for Michigan to ramp up its weekly meat-and-potatoes beam scores from last season. Vore also made the final lineup last season and could knock out one of the main five (or join them again) if she continues to be a little more toward the 9.9 side than the 9.8 side. Still, it seems Michigan’s main beam-improvement strategy may be just to…stay on for all six routines this time. Last season’s lineups were often marked by one fall that could be dropped but meant a couple other 9.825s had to count, and the score was lost. 

FLOOR

2022 Event Ranking: 1

Lineup locks: Gabby Wilson, Sierra Brooks, Naomi Morrison, Natalie Wojcik, Abby Heiskell

Lineup options: Nicoletta Koulos, Reyna Guggino, Carly Bauman, Paige Thaxton, Kaylen Morgan, Ashley Lane

Michigan will experience much less angst about floor than about beam. Thanks to the team’s novel “act like you’ve actually hit a floor routine before” January strategy, Michigan opened strongly on floor in 2022 and never looked back, and nearly the entire lineup returns. While the quintet of Wilson, Brooks, Morrison, Wojcik, and Heiskell are the easy picks on every event, on floor (like on vault) you put that in pen and have no further questions. Moving on.

Michigan will still need an answer for the sixth spot in this lineup for 2023, and several should present themselves. This could be Nicoletta Koulos’s time. She was really starting to come into her own for 9.9s at the end of the 2021 season before an injury curtailed her preparation and contribution in 2022. At Michigan’s December exhibition, she looked like she was back to being the best solution. Reyna Guggino hasn’t always shown the landing consistency to get into the lineup, but she’s typically good for a mid-9.8 on her hit days and could figure here. Similarly, Jenna Mulligan has competed three floor routines in her career, all for 9.8s. Probably not a counting score on this team, but definitely something you could put out there.

As for the semi-unknown new ones, considering her L10 routine that featured both a DLO and an open full-in in the same routine that wasn’t even under the elite code, it would be negligent not to consider Paige Thaxton for this lineup. 

[wptb id=95687]

Ranking History
2022 – 3rd
2021 – 3rd
2020 – 4th
2019 – 7th
2018 – 5th
2017 – 5th
2016 – 9th
2015 – 2nd
2014 – 7th
2013 – 9th

Where 2022 Finished…

There aren’t many complaints Utah can have about the 2022 season. The team won the Pac-12 title again, advanced to the national championship, and finished a solid 3rd with three very competitive rotations. This is pretty much the exact same story as the 2021 season, for which Utah’s 3rd-place was hailed as an unequivocal victory given the clear improvements it showed over the run of 9th-5th-5th-7th finishes in the previous four postseasons. If there’s a frustration for Utah, it will be that the team clearly upgraded in talent in 2022 compared to 2021, just gobbling up all kinds of Olympians, and did so for…the exact same result.  

Now, after two straight seasons of 3rd place, doing it again wouldn’t feel like quite the same kind of victory. Does the team have more?

Gains and Losses

LOST	GAINED
Sydney Soloski – FX	Abby Brenner – transfer
Alexia Burch – VT (UB, BB)	Sarah Krump
Adrienne Randall – BB (FX)	Makenna Smith
Cammy Hall – VT

The New Ones

Utah brings in only two first-year athletes this season, but we should expect to see plenty of Makenna Smith, who has raked in the podium finishes on vault and floor as a L10 for years. Her most important event for Utah is vault, where she shows a 10.0-start round-off 1/2-on front pike (Omelianchik) that should be one of the best-scoring vaults in the lineup, but Smith will also function as at least a viable option on all four events and should make several postseason lineups.

Sarah Krump is the only other first year joining Utah’s class. We didn’t see any of her at the Red Rocks Preview, but she did have a full-in on floor as an L10 athlete and has some potential as a beam development project on a team that doesn’t really need beamers right now.   

Abby Brenner joins Utah’s team for her fifth year of eligibility as a transfer from Michigan. Brenner has been a four-year regular in the vault, bars, and floor lineups for Michigan, known for her Yurchenko 1.5 on vault and full-in on floor. Perhaps her crowning achievement, though, was her last-minute return to the bars lineup for a team-leading 9.925 in Michigan’s 2021 championship performance after she had been injured on floor at the conference championship. With 9.9 ability on her three events, Brenner will look to get into all three lineups for Utah.

Overall, the turnover probably amounts to a slight upgrade in routine supply. The challenge for Utah, then, will be how to transform that slight upgrade into real-life improvement in the final results.

Event by Event

VAULT

2022 Event Ranking: 5

Lineup locks: Jaedyn Rucker, Grace McCallum, Makenna Smith, Abby Brenner, Lucy Stanhope

Lineup options: Sage Thompson, Jillian Hoffman, Jaylene Gilstrap, Maile O’Keefe, Alani Sabado, Kara Eaker

The most straightforward approach for Utah this year on vault would have first-year Makenna Smith and transfer Abby Brenner slot in for the lost Yurchenko 1.5s from Alexia Burch and Cammy Hall, joining Jaedyn Rucker, Grace McCallum, Lucy Stanhope, and Maile O’Keefe from last year’s final lineup to keep the scoring on track with 2022. And that may very well be what we see. Makenna Smith’s Omelianchik was the best vault performed at the Red Rocks Preview and is a must for this lineup, and while Abby Brenner’s Y1.5 was in and out of the Michigan lineup in her final year there, Utah doesn’t have as many 10.0-start options and could really use a healthy Brenner on vault. 

As for the returning locks, the Jaedyn Rucker Y1.5 will likely anchor, Grace McCallum’s Servente should continue to be essential (though she performed only a Yurchenko full at the RRP), and Lucy Stanhope’s Y1.5 earned Utah’s best vault NQS last season thanks to its consistent landing. They should all be back.

In terms of Operation All 10.0s, it sounds like Utah is hoping to get a Yurchenko 1.5 out of Sage Thompson this year as the 6th vault, but if not, there is a comfortable supply of fulls from the likes of Thompson, Hoffman, O’Keefe, Sabado, and now Jaylene Gilstrap as well, who has not vaulted for Utah but showed a very realistic full with good distance at the preview. Having one full in the final lineup probably won’t be the ideal plan if Utah has winning aspirations, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

BARS

2022 Event Ranking: 6

Lineup locks: Maile O’Keefe, Cristal Isa, Grace McCallum, Sage Thompson, Abby Brenner

Lineup options: Amelie Morgan, Makenna Smith, Abby Paulson, Alani Sabado, Kara Eaker, Jaedyn Rucker, Lucy Stanhope

Utah brings back its entire championship lineup on bars this year, so the option exists to just keep everyone the same. Yet, this is probably the event with the most potential for upgrade enhancements, so Utah won’t actually want to keep this one exactly the same. The first bit of news per faithful Utah gymnastics reporter Trent is that Cristal Isa’s injury that kept her out of the Red Rocks Preview is not considered season-threatening (and certainly did not curtail her sideline dancing contributions), so we can go ahead and put her in lineups for the purposes of this preview. Isa should once again be considered a lock for this bars lineup, along with O’Keefe, McCallum, and Thompson. Four big scores, no reason to change anything there. Amelie Morgan also seems solid to return to the leadoff position, and the toe tuck 1/2 dismount looks like a stickable option for her thus far. 

Abby Brenner had an NQS over 9.9 last year, so Utah’s path toward upgrading the bars scores likely has her slot into the lineup in place of Abby Paulson, who is typically in the 9.800-9.850 zone for her routine. This year’s best lineup probably has Paulson as the reliable backup. The best lineup may also end up including Makenna Smith, who has a lovely Maloney to Pak to start her routine and whose presence in the six may hinge on the consistency of that double Arabian dismount. Alani Sabado also has a pretty bars option but is usually in backup zone here. 

BEAM

2022 Event Ranking: 1

Lineup locks: Kara Eaker, Maile O’Keefe, Abby Paulson, Cristal Isa

Lineup options: Grace McCallum, Amelie Morgan, Jaylene Gilstrap, Lucy Stanhope, Makenna Smith

Utah’s beam was best in the country last season and returns all six athletes from that lineup (since Adrienne Randall didn’t end up in the championship beam lineup), so there’s really the least to say here. In this case, Utah would have exactly zero problems with keeping that Eaker, O’Keefe, Paulson, Isa, McCallum, Morgan group exactly the same. Without Randall and Alexia Burch on the team this year, there are actually fewer great beam workers you need to try to cram into a lineup and therefore less angst about what the actual best six should be. It’s pretty much…this. Grace McCallum’s place was touch-and-go at times last year, but she was in the nationals lineup, and Utah’s best-scoring beam team would have her in it.

In place of Isa, Jaylene Gilstrap performed a lovely routine at the RRP that is a very viable option as well, at least for inevitable resting and injury replacement needs—if not for the final lineup. Lucy Stanhope was relegated to backup last season after making the lineup in 2021, and that’s probably the case again this year, while first-year Makenna Smith presents a possibility as well. Because of split positions, beam seems the least likely lineup for Smith to make in her first year, but she’s in the picture.

FLOOR

2022 Event Ranking: 4

Lineup locks: Grace McCallum, Jaedyn Rucker, Maile O’Keefe, Abby Paulson

Lineup options: Abby Brenner, Makenna Smith, Kara Eaker, Jaylene Gilstrap, Jillian Hoffman, Lucy Stanhope, Sage Thompson

The single biggest replacement question on any event for Utah this season is the Sydney Soloski floor anchor 9.950 and where that might come from now—since there isn’t really the huge floor star joining the team who would obviously make up for it—but there shouldn’t be any lack of reasonably scoring options.

Utah will certainly have Grace McCallum, Jaedyn Rucker, and Maile O’Keefe returning with presumably the top 3 scores in the lineup, and Abby Paulson once again should feature after appearing on floor in nearly every meet last season. As on vault, the simplest solution may be to have Abby Brenner and Makenna Smith come in and join a first-choice returning four. Brenner’s NQS of 9.895 on floor last season would put her at 4th-best on this year’s Utah team, and Smith is a clean twister with a front 2/1 (she also has a double Arabian in her pocket from L10) who looks like she would fit into a six nicely.

In terms of potential game-changing wildcards, remember that time Jillian Hoffman got 9.975 on floor last year before her injury? That. There’s also Kara Eaker if she’s able to get into the lineup at all regularly this time, though that 1.5 combo pass attempt at the RRP had us all saying, “Just save yourself for beam.” 

Ideally, we’d see Gilstrap in this lineup because of how gymnastics is supposed to look, but she’s more typically in the 9.8s, so it’s not a given. The same is true for Stanhope who has the difficulty in her corner but has tended to get knocked to backup position in this lineup.