April 7, 4:00 ET, North Carolina State University

Qualifying to nationals: Top 2 teams, top 2 all-arounders not on advancing teams, any event winners not on advancing teams

Teams (starting event)
[2] LSU (floor)
[11] Nebraska (beam)
[14] Oregon State (bye before floor)
[19] George Washington (bye before bars)
[20] NC State (bars)
[31] Maryland (vault)

Individual competitors
Morgan Lane, North Carolina (AA)
Katie Waldman, William & Mary (AA)
Mary Elle Arduino, Towson (AA)
Taylor White, William & Mary (AA)
Khazia Hislop, North Carolina (VT, BB, FX)
Madison Nettles, North Carolina (VT)
Tyra McKellar, Towson (UB)
Kaitlynn Hedelund, North Carolina (UB)
Gabriella Yarussi, Towson (BB)
Mikayla Robinson, North Carolina (FX)

The favorite

Top-to-bottom, this is the deepest and toughest of the six regionals, but LSU is far enough ahead of the rest of the teams that it should be impervious to the upset mixer. From week to week, LSU has been scoring somewhere around a point higher than the other teams here, and even early in the season when LSU was a little scrappy and counting errors, the final totals were still 197.1s and 197.2s. Those are advancing scores. (A 197 has never not advanced from regionals—the highest score ever to miss out being Auburn’s 196.700 from 2013). LSU should have the luxury of counting a fall here and still getting through.

LSU did expose itself to side-eye-level concern at the conference championship with an only-OK performance that reflected a dip in level rather than a rise toward the postseason—no 9.9s at all on floor, a fall on vault accompanied by lunges on the 10.0 starts. LSU will need to pick up the quality of the landings, particularly on the leg events, to look like a title threat again heading to St. Louis.

That vault lineup remains fascinating because it’s still so unresolved. Priessman didn’t vault at SECs, but if LSU can’t rely on 1.5s from Harrold or Cannamela (which at this point looks to be the case)…do you go with Priessman, who has done the 1.5 once this year and who has Priessman-legs, or do you go with just the three 10.0 starts and hope that holds up versus Oklahoma’s four? Choices choices.

The fight

The fight is not limited to only two teams in this one, with George Washington and NC State entering as nearly equal contenders to the seeded teams, but if either Nebraska or Oregon State goes 196.8+ (which OSU has done five times this year and Nebraska four), that probably seals the second spot as a battle between the two of them and cuts off the unseeded challenges. So let’s start with our seeds.

Nebraska owns the ranking advantage, built on scoring higher at road meets compared to Oregon State, which hasn’t often ventured out of the 196.5 zone on the road. RQS is Nebraska’s friend in 2018, rewarding those highs on the road while dropping struggle meets like the Big Five, but if we were going by average, Oregon State would be ranked higher than Nebraska, having been the more consistent of the two teams this year. Continue reading Raleigh Regional Preview →

April 7, 4:00 CT, University of Minnesota

Qualifying to nationals: Top 2 teams, top 2 all-arounders not on advancing teams, any event winners not on advancing teams

Teams (starting event)
[1] Oklahoma (floor)
[12] Kentucky (beam)
[13] Denver (bye before floor)
[24] Minnesota (bye before bars)
[28] Iowa State (bars)
[35] Iowa (vault)

Individual competitors
Lisa O’Donnell, UW-Whitewater (AA)
Tori Erickson, UW-Eau Claire (AA)
Brooke Terry, UW-Stout (AA)
Samantha Wiekamp, UW-La Crosse (AA)
Mikaela Meyer, Utah State (VT)
Madison Ward, Utah State (VT, FX)
Anna Salamone, Air Force (UB)
Brittany Jeppesen, Utah State (UB)
Autumn DeHarde, Utah State (BB, FX)
Emily Briones, Utah State (BB)

The favorite

The excitement brewing in this regional will come from the fight for the second spot. For the first position, Oklahoma is expected qualify and do so very comfortably. So inconsiderate. With Oklahoma typically scoring a full point better than the peak results of the #2 and #3 teams here, the Sooners would be able to count at least one fall (and probably two) and still advance. At the Big 12 Championship, Denver finished .700 behind Oklahoma, a very strong performance and respectable result but one that would still give Oklahoma more than a fall worth of leeway if repeated here.

More pressing in Oklahoma’s regional performance will be the chance to observe whether openings still exist in these lineups, ones that other top teams might wriggle their way through come nationals. We have seen those crop up from time to time this year. Small openings, but openings nonetheless: a couple fulls on vault that might be only OK, a couple lower 9.8s on floor, some scoring inconsistency coming primarily from the young’uns. The other regional #1 seeds would like to see those issues maintained at regionals so that Oklahoma arrives at nationals not as BEST SCORING TEAM RQS RECORD OMG but as a top-seeded team that could be vulnerable on the day.

The fight

But here’s where it really gets good. There is so little separating Kentucky and Denver in this qualification race that it could reasonably go either way, and a hit meet from both would be very much a 50/50 prospect. Neither result would rank as a surprise based on what we’ve seen this season, and not qualifying for nationals will feel an unfair outcome for either team based on the seasons they’ve had. Continue reading Minneapolis Regional Preview →