FINAL SEASON RANKING
2019 – 18th
2018 – 10th
2017 – 19th
2016 – 20th
2015 – 14th
2014 – 15th
2013 – 10th
2012 – 6th
2011 – 10th
2010 – 11th

THE 2019 STORY
Arkansas finished 2019 with one of its weaker rankings historically at just 18th place, but after a season spent at #20, Arkansas will feel that the way things ended—a respectable 5th-place result at SECs and then coming just .125 from making the regional final—was a high note. At times during the year, it looked like things would go worse than that.

FINAL SEASON RANKING
2019 – 16th
2018 – 14th
2017 – 15th
2016 – 11th
2015 – 6th
2014 – 20th
2013 – 13th
2012 – 15th
2011 – 19th
2010 – 19th

THE 2019 STORY
Auburn spent the entirely of its 2019 season in the 11-13 ranking zone and will therefore feel that a final placement of 16th—largely informed by an unforeseen bars disaster in the regional final—understates the team’s quality. Which is probably true. It’s Auburn’s weakest finish of the last five years but not its weakest team.

FINAL SEASON RANKING
2019 – 11th
2018 – 9th
2017 – 16th
2016 – 7th
2015 – 18th
2014 – 16th
2013 – 28th
2012 – 49th
2011 – 50th
2010 – 55th

THE 2019 STORY
Cal’s 11th-place finish in 2019 ranks among the better results the team has put up since it turned good, so the 2019 story should be a mostly satisfying one. The team rose at the end of the season, even withstanding the Toni-Ann Williams injury to put up a valiant effort and program-record team score in a nearly impossible regional final—going up against Oklahoma and Home Georgia and ultimately finishing .375 short of making nationals.

FINAL SEASON RANKING
2019 – 5th
2018 – 13th
2017 – 10th
2016 – 13th
2015 – 7th
2014 – 10th
2013 – 7th
2012 – 13th
2011 – 6th
2010 – 10th

THE 2019 STORY
There’s much for Michigan to be proud of from its 2019 season. The team came back from missing nationals entirely in 2018 to finish 2019 in 5th place, which quietly ranks as Michigan’s best result of the decade. In fact, Michigan hasn’t done better than 5th since Elise Ray was a freshman. You wouldn’t necessarily have picked that coming in to 2019, but it was a historically good finish.

And yet, it’s difficult to escape the disheartening “and none for Michigan bye” postseason feeling because Michigan’s score from the afternoon semifinal would have advanced to the top 4 out of the evening semifinal, beating Denver by a couple tenths. It’s an old story. Michigan always seems to be in the wrong session at the wrong time. Would have advanced to nationals from any other regional. Would have advanced to Super Six from the other semi. The best team not to make [insert round here]. It’s kind of a thing for Michigan.

FINAL SEASON RANKING
2019 – 2nd
2018 – 4th
2017 – 2nd
2016 – 2nd
2015 – 10th
2014 – 3rd
2013 – 5th
2012 – 9th
2011 – 20th
2010 – 9th

THE 2019 STORY
2nd 2nd 2nd 2nd 2nd 2nd 2nd. The continuation of LSU’s eternal 2nd-place journey somewhat obscures the reality that finishing in 2nd in 2019 was an excellent result and an over-performance based on how the season had gone. LSU wasn’t supposed to finish as high as 2nd, but UCLA was sort of eh in the final (and Florida bombed regionals, which helped take a contender out of the way), and LSU snatched the opportunity.

So while 2019 will inevitably get filed away in the “sigh, LSU can never win a championship” folder, that was actually a really good finish for that team.

FINAL SEASON RANKING
2019 – 22nd
2018 – 28th
2017 – 28th
2016 – 10th
2015 – 5rd
2014 – 9th
2013 – 12th
2012 – 4th
2011 – 15th
2010 – 4th

THE 2019 STORY
It’s been a while since Stanford was truly competitive on a national stage, and those years of Stanford suddenly turning great for the last couple meets of the season and surprising everyone to make Super Six are beginning to feel like a vestige of a different era.

Stanford’s 22nd-place finish in 2019 should be regarded as an encouraging improvement over the previous two seasons with fledgling sprouts of new growth emerging, but it still ranks as one of the weaker results in program history. Stanford’s 2020 focus will not be on replacing last year’s routines or keeping pace with that performance but on improving every event.