Soon, Michigan will get underway visiting Minnesota and Alabama will begin at Penn State (along with Michigan State and Cornell).

If Alabama can hit bars, they have the potential to score exceptionally well and keep pace with Arkansas’s weekend-leading 197.225.  This will be Alabama’s first road meet, and it will be interesting to see whether they can match their huge home score on vault and keep pace with UCLA on that event.  However, the bars issue is most important because, like last year, this group really has no business making numerous mistakes on bars.  While scoring in the 49.3-49.4 range that they will need to in the postseason could be an issue down the road, hitting six routines should not be.  We saw way too many errors on handstands against Georgia.  I’d rather them be short and take a minor deduction than go over and ruin the routine.

For Michigan, the goal should be putting up six usable routines on every apparatus, finding a group that can hit beam well, and trying to break into the 196 range.  They have little depth, but I’d like to see some of it coming into play.  They’ll need Annette Miele fully healthy and hitting well this year.

Follow here with scores and comments.

Dear Scoring,

I’m impatient.

All the best,
The Balance Beam Situation

Alabama begins on beam with Kim Jacob’s 9.750 and Milliner’s 9.850.  Meanwhile Penn State starts slowly on vault with 9.625, 9.675, 9.750, and 9.650.

Note: No Gutierrez or Demeo on beam tonight for Alabama.  Sledge and Clark are in.  Kaitlyn Clark goes 9.600, meaning they are counting Jacob’s 9.750.  Last week they were able to recover from some 9.7s to go 49.1.  They’ll need big routines from Priess and Stack-Eaton to go higher (as they would hope/expect to do).

Penn State finishes well on vault with a 9.825 for Merriam and 9.875 for Musser to give them 48.775.  We’ll keep an eye on Musser for the AA title battle tonight.

Sledge goes 9.750 just like Jacob, meaning that Stack-Eaton and Priess will need to average 9.875s to equal last week’s performance.

(Q: Does anyone have working live scores for Michigan’s meet?)

Stack-Eaton goes 9.500 and Milliner is the only one in the lineup who has scored well so far.  They’ll go below 49 regardless of what Priess does, but she needs to limit the damage and keep them above Penn State.

9.775 for Priess – fine, but not what they needed because Penn State is in the lead after the first rotation. Scoring was never going to be as big for Alabama at Penn State as it was at home, but this is a weak start.  More pressure on vault and floor now to make up for beam.

After Rotation 1: Penn State 48.775, Alabama 48.725, Michigan State 48.225, Cornell 47.200


Alabama will be putting up the same floor lineup as last week, including Lora Leigh Frost, who had a fall and didn’t necessarily look lineup ready.  Still no Stack-Eaton here.

Penn State begins bars with a solid 9.750 and 9.800.  Kim Jacob goes 9.800 on floor, which is around what she did last week and should be a good set-up score for the others.

Penn State follows with two more 9.750s from Stine and Welsh.  They’ll need to rely on Merriam and Musser again if they are to get on 196 track, which should be the goal.

Sledge follows with a 9.800 and Frost recovers from last week with an encouraging 9.850, so they won’t have to drop her score again.  (See, that’s what happens when I question someone’s place in the lineup.  Therefore I will really need to question Mattie’s place in the floor lineup tomorrow.)

Penn State gets Musser to deliver again (seriously, where would they be without her?) and they go 48.975 on bars.

Michigan update: Solid vault for 49.075, disaster on bars (including a fall from Martinez, they cannot afford that from their best worker) for 48.250.  More trouble for Michigan and no routines from Miele yet.

9.675 from Gutierrez on floor – an unexpected shame.  A 9.825 from Milliner keeps Alabama on pace for 49.1-49.2 if they can get a good hit from Priess.  Still, the big scores aren’t coming yet.

Uh oh, a fall from Priess for 9.225.  Alabama goes below 49 again and are .075 behind Penn State.  This is way more interesting than I thought it was going to be.  Alabama needs a 49.500 on vault immediately.

After Rotation 2: Penn State 97.750, Alabama 97.675, Michigan State 95.875, Cornell 94.325


Alabama’s vault lineup also remains the same (why change after last week?) and once again will be Kayla Williams’s only contribution.  It’s interesting to me that she hasn’t made floor yet.  She was recruited for more than one event.

Alabama vault: Clark goes 9.850 and Williams goes 9.800.  She has underperformed so far this season. They needed her to replace Hoffman on two events.  There’s still time, but watch this space.

Sledge goes 9.925, the score she probably should have gotten last week, so Alabama is on their way to at least a bit of recovery here.

Michigan: trying to avoid counting a fall on floor from Zurales.  9.8s from Sampson and Sugiyama.

Gutierrez puts up 9.9, so they are pretty much on track from last week, though I would be very surprised to see another 10 from Stack-Eaton.  And she goes 9.875, which is still strong and closer to what I expect from her on a weekly basis.

Milliner finishes with 9.875 for an excellent 49.425 rotation.  They lose a little ground on UCLA here after two meets, but they should pull ahead of Penn State by a good margin going into the major question mark rotation.  Alabama currently sits at 147.100 after three events, so a great bars could put them close to 196.500, but I think they’ll take anything over 196 at this point.  Much like Florida, it won’t be a headline-making score, but it will be good enough for now (if they hit bars).

Michigan disaster: 8.825 on floor from Colbert, so they are counting another fall with two routines to go (and beam still to go).  This could get very ugly very quickly.

Penn State doing their best to keep pace with Alabama’s big vault score, Bencsko goes 9.900 on beam.

Eeeek, Natalie Beilstein appears to have just recorded a 1.000 on floor.  That’s an injury-and-couldn’t-continue kind of score.  While it’s a disaster score-wise for Michigan, let’s just hope she’s OK.

Well, I may have spoken too soon about Penn State being well behind Alabama going into the last rotation.  They just put up an excellent 49.250 on beam and trail by just .100 going into the final event. Keep watching these scores because this is getting good.

After Rotation 3: Alabama 147.100, Penn State 147.000, Michigan State 144.325, Cornell 141.150


(Oklahoma just delivered on bars for 49.375.  It’s time for them to start getting into gear…this is a good start.  I haven’t been convinced by their quality yet.)

Sledge opens Alabama’s bars with a 9.800.  I still don’t like her leading off unless it’s absolutely necessary because she can score so well.  Maybe it is absolutely necessary…

Alexin follows with 9.800 and Clark puts up 9.775.  Good, fine, regular, which is what they need to get confident on this event right now.

Demeo picks up the pace for 9.850 – so they’re on solid 49 track so far.

Stack-Eaton 9.575.  She is having a really rough day, her second score in the 9.5s of the night.  Must hit time for Priess if they want to break 196.

Priess goes 9.850, so Alabama finishes with 196.175, having to count two scores in the 9.6s.  It’s not a disaster of a meet because they didn’t have to count a fall, but they will not be satisfied.  Work to be done.  Penn State is still definitely in this for the win.  Two big routines to come on floor.

A 9.825 for Merriam means that Musser needs just a 9.850 to give Penn State the win.  Very doable for her.

Oooh, Musser socre on 9.750 on floor, meaning that Alabama just edges Penn State 196.175 – 196.100.  Penn State should still be mostly satisfied, but they really could have won this meet.

Another final: Michigan 193.150, Minnesota 193.000 (Ouch.)

Alright, that’s it for me tonight.  Enjoy the scores!

No free streams today, so we’ll be following scores from Florida @ Kentucky (7:00/4:00), Nebraska @ Iowa State (7:30/4:30), and the Arkansas and Georgia meets (8:00/5:00).

Florida has been steady, scoring in the low 196s for the first two meets, though they did have an unfortunate floor rotation last week and should have scored higher.  They’re still missing key members (Caquatto, half an Alaina Johnson), and I don’t expect them to reach the heights of performance (though they can still score hugely at home without them) until they return.  Florida is still scoring well enough for January, so confidence should be pretty high even though they haven’t put up the big numbers. Confidence could become an issue, though, if they continue having to count falls.  24 for 24 should be the goal tonight, and if the score is still low 196s, then so be it.

For Nebraska, in the long term they have to find a way to sustain the performance level that put them at #1.  But for today, that’s not the biggest concern.  They won’t score that well every week, especially on the road, so a lower score today should not be seen as a loss.  It is much more important for them to build up a team that can perform well for months on end, meaning that they need to get 24 usable performances into the lineup immediately.  Even if they wouldn’t necessarily want those gymnasts performing in postseason, they have to start building the depth.  Plan A is obviously Jessie DeZiel, but what’s Plan B?  

Notes on scores after the jump from 7:00 ET.

Florida will begin on bars.  They managed a 49.200 last week on the back of Johnson’s second consecutive 9.900.  Besides Caquatto, do they have anyone else who can best 9.850 on this team?

Nicole Ellis leads off Florida with a 9.800, solid opening, but they may not want to have to use this score again this year if people like Spicer and Wang can solidify their routines and score higher.

Kentucky hanging around the 9.8 area on vault.  They have improved this event in 2012 by being able to send up 6 routines in competition.  They were competing only five at the end of last year.

Dickerson goes 9.725…not a strong score for her.  She has form break and won’t ever deserve a massive score, but they need her to go big on releases and tread water in the 9.8 area.

Kytra Hunter goes 9.875 to make up for Ashanee’s lower score.  She never had great bars in elite, and Martha even encouraged her to stop training them, but maybe with NCAA composition she’ll be able to make Kelli Hill proud.

Nice to see Marissa King in the lineup going 9.875 as well.  She has real talent on bars, but hasn’t always warranted making the lineup in the past.  It doesn’t seem to come as naturally to her as the other events.

Kentucky has some rough scores (9.425 and 9.575) at the end of the lineup to score 48.750 on vault.  They would have hope for higher.

Caquatto is back in the lineup on bars (great sign for Florida that she’s back on at least one event already) and goes 9.775.  Fine score for her first routine of the year.  She’ll get there.

Johnson finished for Florida with a 9.850.  It’s not a bad score, but they really rely on her for 9.9+, so a rotation with great potential ends up with a solid/unspectacular 49.175.  So they ended up scoring better last week even though they had a stronger lineup this week.  Still, it’s a good step to get a (close to) ideal lineup in for competition right now.

Second rotation for Florida/Kentucky:
Jamie Shisler goes 9.775 on vault.  I still don’t buy this lineup decision because it’s such a January routine, but it is January, so…

Ellis goes 9.850 again and could legitimately make the lineup for this team.  I wouldn’t have picked that in preseason.  Note that we have seen none of Wang and Spicer so far.

Marissa King goes 9.700.  Granted, I didn’t see the routine, but I’m crying foul anyway.  Her vault makes me too happy to get a 9.700.  She should get Tsukahara bonus points or something.

Johnson’s in on vault (another great sign of progress) and goes 9.825 (9.90/9.75…hmmm…)

Ashanee goes 9.900.  Becoming expected for her.  She’s powerful enough to go higher, but needs to get those legs together on landing if she wants to challenge for those 10s we’ve been seeing.

Kytra follows with a 9.925 on her vault.  That’s a great 1-2 punch at the end of the vault lineup (something they’ll want to see from Caquatto and Johnson on bars), and if they can get King and Johnson scoring up to capability and Caquatto into the lineup, they will have the opportunity to keep pace with UCLA and Alabama.

Kentucky has a family of 9.6s on bars to score 48.425 for a total of 97.175.  Florida ends up with 49.275 on vault for a total of 98.450.  It’ll be tough for them to go 197, but I can see very high 196s if they hit from here on out.

Meanwhile up in Iowa, Nebraska has started with a 9.750 and 9.775 on bars, followed by a 9.800 from Jessie DeZiel.  These are closer to the kind of scores I expected so far.  Brittany Skinner goes 8.700…ouch.  Janelle Giblin settles the rotation and reaches closer to last week with a 9.900, and Evenstad finishes with 9.875 for a team score of 49.100.  Not bad after all.  They got two excellent scores and were able to drop the disaster.

Back in Kentucky, Stageberg starts on floor with a 9.725.  Not a strong score, but I like her starting this rotation.  At her strongest, she has 9.850-9.875 potential in that leadoff position, which will put them on a great track.  Ferguson follows with a 9.750.  They’re leaving work for Dickerson, King, and Hunter at the end.

Nebraska gets a 9.800 on vault from freshman Jennifer Lauer (that’s the kind of new routine to add depth I was talking about, good sign) to follow a 9.700 from Barmore.

Florida has a 9.525 from Wang on floor, meaning they are counting two scores in the 9.7s at least.  I have not been convinced by Wang’s tumbling at all yet.  She has really nice presentation and perhaps the best routine of the group choreographically, but she can’t hit it right now.

Hunter goes 9.825, which is the best score of the rotation so far but not her best.  Her ability is such that she should be walking through a field of 9.9s come the second half of the season.

Nebraska gets 9.875 and 9.850 from Wong and Evenstad on vault…now this rotation is keeping pace with last week as long as they can drop Barmore’s score.

King goes 9.850, which still gives Florida hope to potentially salvage a 49 from this rotation.

Nebraska finished vault with another set of 9.850 and 9.875, so no one went 9.9, but they got some great, solid vaults to score 49.250 and a total after two events of 98.350.  It’s not like last week, but they should be happy with this performance so far.

Ashanee finishes floor for Florida with a 9.850 to give them 49.000 exactly and a three-event total of 147.450.  They are still on track for their best score of the season, which is encouraging because they can do so much better than this.

More to follow: Georgia v. Auburn and Arkansas v. LSU are about to get underway.

Georgia: Chelsea Davis starts  on bars with 9.775.  It sort of hurts me that she’s not going 4th or 5th and getting 9.9s, but we have to think it will come.  She is very talented on that event.  Noel Couch follows her with a 9.700.  Do Kat Ding and Gina Nuccio have to do everything around here?

LSU: Ohhh, Lainie Fleming starts on bars with a 8.450.  Sadness.

Georgia: Tanella goes 9.825 (which is about on form for her), and Shayla goes 9.850.  We need to get her up to a 9.9.  9.850 is only fine…  Nuccio scores 9.825.  This is their event.  The scores will need to improve.  9.8s aren’t going to cut it.

Georgia: Nooooo!  Kat Ding goes 9.525.  There is no justice.  And Georgia goes 48.975 on bars for a poor start.  They are just .050 ahead of Auburn after one rotation.

Arkansas: Sweet heavens, they keep it up with a 49.400 on vault, led by Katherine Grable’s 9.950.  This team is surprising everybody so far, and not just on one event or at one meet…

Florida: More 9.7s (their 7th and 8th of the night) as Stageberg and Spicer start beam with 9.750, 9.725.

LSU: Good recovery from the start to go 49 on bars.  Morrison and Hall score 9.850.  Morrison is only on one event this week, but they need her back, so it’s a start.

Nebraska: Two 9.650s from J. Lauer and Schleppenbach (spelled it on my first try!) on floor.  At least they should have 6 routines this week.

Florida: More trouble on the beam with a 9.775 from Johnson and a 9.650 from Dickerson (Ashanee throws in a few of those – or more – every season, which keeps her from being the beamer she can be).  This is a another struggle for Florida.

Nebraska: Wong puts up 9.850 and DeZiel goes 9.825 to help make up for that 9.650 they’ll have to count.  They are in a similar situation to Florida right now, trying to recover from some lower scores at the beginning of the floor lineup.

Georgia: Davis and Couch open vault with 9.775, 9.825.  It looks like a very 9.825 kind of night for Georgia so far.

FINAL: Florida 196.250, Kentucky 194.075 — Florida keeps improving by about a tenth every week, and they still are in the mode where it’s okay to be sloppy (they didn’t count a fall this week) because of their delayed training schedule and new approach.  As we head toward February and get all the routines back, there will be fewer allowances.  Starting now, they need to begin purging those 9.7s and turning those 9.8s into 9.9s.  They scored only two 9.9s today, and this team is too talented for that, even in January.

Arkansas: I can’t…9.9 from Grable and 9.950 from Pisani on bars.  What is in the water over there.  We might have to put them on highest score of the season so far watch tonight.

LSU: countering Arkansas with their own huge rotation on vault – 9.950 from Ashley Lee in the second position.

Georgia: Kat Ding recovers to get a 9.900 on vault and give the team 49.175.  Total of 98.150 after two rotations.  This is putting more pressure on a questionable floor lineup. (Auburn is close with 97.850)

Huge Scores Alert: Arkansas goes 49.450 on bars while LSU goes 49.500 on vault.  They’re both on ridiculous pace so far.

Nebraska: It appears they may have gone with 5 floor workers again as the scores haven’t changed in a while.  48.875 so far on floor.

OK, that’s it for me for tonight on the scoring.  I may come back later with finals and wrap-ups.  Enjoy the scores.

FINAL SCORES:
Nebraska 195.775, Iowa State 193.925
Georgia 195.975, Auburn 195.600
Arkansas 197.225, LSU 196.325

Georgia and Nebraska both underperformed compared to previous results, Nebraska having to count a fall on the beam and Georgia putting up way too many scores in the 9.725-9.825 range.  But the story of the night is Arkansas, who put up a huge 197.225, including Katherine Grable’s crazy AA score of 39.725 (and Pisani went 39.575).  Right now they are the best scoring duo in NCAA, and the team is getting enough mid-9.8s from the rest of the team to make it work.  I still have some concerns over beam and depth (they are very reliant on Grable and Pisani for the big scores on every event, which may hurt them later if there is a problem), but they are making the SEC a four-way race again, which is exciting.

Stanford is about to get underway with a quad meet at home, and UCLA is visiting Cal today.  We don’t have live video for either of these meets, but I’m going to update here with scores and thoughts.

UCLA needs to get the confidence going on beam (inexcusable!) as soon as possible to set themselves up for the rest of the season.  I’d also like to see a more complete floor rotation out of this meet.  This is a meet they should win handily, so normally I would expect to see a lot of lineup experimentation, but the coaches may want to keep things the same to build this group confidence up on those two events at least.

For Stanford, Shapiro is in the lineup on only bars and Ivana Hong is not in at all.  We knew going into the season that this team would be very reliant on these two freshmen and was in a risky situation with their injury history.  We will have to see how they cope without some of the star routines they were relying on.

Stanford will begin on vault with Morgan, Meyer, Hanset, Pechanec, Dayton, and Archer.  Only Morgan and Dayton were in the lineup last postseason.

Please look at Sacramento State’s floor lineup: we have Katie, Kaila, Kalliah, Cayla, and Kailey.

MDLT begins with a 9.700 on bars for UCLA.  She’s capable of much higher and went 9.850 last week.

Gerber follows with 9.775.  I thought her 9.9 last week was a smidge high because of the leg separation on the pak, but this is a touch lower than expectations.

Larson goes 9.725.  This is not the start UCLA wanted after they were pretty solid on bars last week.  So far, Cal is led by a 9.800 from Crystal Paz on vault.  No updates on the scores yet for Stanford.

Peszek puts up 9.775 (9.850 from Judge 1 and 9.700 from Judge 2, interesting).  Big pressure on the final 2 gymnasts to pick up the pace.  This team is too good for a bunch of 9.7s on bars

Zamarripa delivers a 9.9 to take some of the pressure off.  She went 9.825 last week with a big loss of form in handstand, so this is good improvement.

Cal finishes vault with a great rotation for them: 48.850.  Olivia Courtney goes 9.800 to finish UCLA’s bars rotation at 48.975.  That’s a big letdown from last week on this event – where they showed the same lineup.  They’ll need to get some momentum on vault.  (Still nothing on the Stanford scoreboard). If UCLA is to keep pace or improve on last week, they’ll have to rock vault and hit beam.

UCLA to vault now where Baer starts with a 9.875 followed by Larson’s 9.850.  This is more like it from them.  They’ll need to keep these scores up to balance out bars and stay well over 196 pace going into beam and floor.

Quite a luxury to have someone as talented as Courtney #3 in the lineup, she was 5th and 6th most of last season.  She goes 9.925.

Frattone goes 9.825, which is low from her.  She stuck for 9.950 last week but the danger of her Omelianchik is that, when she doesn’t stick, it’s usually a large step forward that takes a big chunk out of the score.

Hello, Sam Peszek just went 9.925 but with a 10 from one judge and a 9.850 from another.  I question that 10 because her amplitude and distance is usually not enough to warrant that.

Did I mention 10s?  Zamarripa just put up a 10 on vault.  We know she’s capable of earning it, but it will be interesting to see some video to evaluate.

UCLA recovered in a big way from bars, exceeding their vault score from last week by putting up a 49.575 for a total of 98.550.  They were able to drop Frattone’s 9.825.  Cal goes 48.475 on bars for a total of 97.325.  If they could keep up this pace into 194 territory, that would be a great score for them.

While we aren’t getting routine scores from the Stanford meet, we see they just went 48.850 on vault.

Aisha hits floor for 9.825.  Her tumbling was uncertain last week with some awkward landings, so that’s an encouraging sign for her consistently making this lineup.

Cal will have to count a fall on beam after starting with two 9.150s (they were on such a good pace!), and Frattone has put up 9.800 on floor.  Ouch, and a 9.250 for Cal third up on beam.  Damage control time now.

Interesting, Hopfner-Hibbs is up 3rd in the floor lineup (I can’t remember the last time she was that early on floor) after anchoring the rotation last week with a weak performance.  She goes 9.900, which is a huge recovery from the 9.675 against Utah.

Wong has been placed into the floor lineup (where she has scored 9.9 in the past) and she has a fall for 9.225.  Not a great start to the season for her.  Time to tighten up or this could go downhill very fast.

Peszek hits for 9.825.  The anchor (which should be either Larson or Courtney) can handily erase Wong’s fall with a hit and make this a solid rotation, but they’re probably not going to be as far over 49 as they’d like even if they get a hit.

Disaster for Cal on beam, counting 3 falls to score 47.200 and a running total of 144.525.  They were doing so well.  Mattie Larson has another mistake for UCLA, which means they are counting a fall on floor and score 48.575 for a total of 147.125.  At least we have Val’s press conference to look forward to.  I have a feeling things are going to be inexcusable again.  Oh Mattie and the floor…the saga continues.

Now UCLA is in a position where they must hit 5 of 6 on beam.  Be worried.

Aisha Gerber hits for 9.850 — 1 down, 4 to go.  (I’d still like to see her solidity in the middle of the lineup, though).  (NOTE: This score just got revised to 9.900)

Frattone is in the beam lineup (didn’t Val say she was going to keep it the same?) and got a 9.700, which is not great, but she stayed on the beam, so…

HUGE hit for Lichelle Wong to get 9.925.  After the problems last week and the fall on floor, that’s a tremendous accomplishment.  3 hits, 2 more to go…

Larson also recovers from her floor fall for 9.875.  This is going very well for UCLA on beam so far, and with presumably EHH and Peszek to go, they should get at least one hit from that group.  Disappointment on floor, but there’s an opportunity to recover here.

Hopfner-Hibbs goes 9.925, so UCLA will not be counting a fall, and if Peszek can erase Frattone’s score, this could be a huge score out of nowhere.  If only they had hit floor… (Interesting that Courtney has not competed beam or floor.  Hopefully the hamstring is not acting up again.)

Peszek hits as well for 9.925 capping a humungous beam rotation for UCLA of 49.550 to give them a total of 196.675, which is a great improvement over last week overall but could have been really tremendous if not for counting a fall on floor.  A hit on floor would have put them well over 197.  Still, maybe Val won’t be as upset as last week after hitting beam so well to end the meet.

Peszek wins the AA again with 39.450, and Cal finishes with 192.550 which is an improvement over last week.

As much as other gymnastics teams might wish they could create a rivalry like this, Georgia vs. Alabama remains one of a kind.  Even though it’s early in the season, this year’s edition still provides us with some intriguing story lines.  By all tangible measures, Alabama should be the favorite.  They are coming off a national championship, competing at home, and fielding a deeper and more accomplished squad. Certainly, a loss would be a bigger blow to Alabama than it would be to Georgia.