Category Archives: Regionals

Regionals

Regionals Round-Up

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Since actually watching all the regionals and getting a sense of how they played out is aggressively impossible, here is a summary of the salient details regarding qualification and not-qualification for each of the six competitions on Hellscape Saturday in case you missed anything.

Florida Regional
Archived stream
What looked like it should have been a straightforward regional began way too interestingly for anyone’s blood pressure when Florida, ever the charitable cherubs, took pity on us and decided to get weird by opening bars with Alicia Boren going over on a handstand for 9.425 and Rachel Gowey falling on a Ray for 9.200. Ultimately, this didn’t matter in the slightest as Florida recovered for normal scores on floor and vault to win the regional and qualify to nationals by over a point.

Georgia used a near-season-high 49.325 vault score in the first rotation (featuring a 9.950 for Snead) to open a lead over Missouri that was never smaller than three-tenths throughout the entirety of the meet, undermining the potential SEC clash we had before us. Once Georgia was able to drop Lauren Johnson’s bars fall and get through a beam rotation featuring only one wobble-burger (wow!), Missouri had little hope of catching up. The absence of Rachel Dickson anywhere but bars remains a concern for Georgia heading toward nationals, however, as Beth Roberts replaced her on vault and floor with respectable-but-not-Super-Six 9.800s.

Missouri ultimately finished .675 behind Georgia and never came all that close to challenging, doing well to avoid counting any falls after misses from Tucker on bars and beam but never getting the necessary big scores in the 9.9 zone. The main trouble for Missouri was the unwelcome discovery that routines that had been scoring 9.850 at home during the regular season were suddenly scoring 9.775 and 9.800 here, making it difficult to squeak very far over the 49.0 plateau on any event. Continue reading Regionals Round-Up →

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Regionals

Regional Championship Headquarters

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Saturday marks what is simultaneously the most exciting and most unbearable day of the gymnastics year, regionals. Try to contain your weird sweating.

Because NCAA gymnastics is a short-sighted dinosaur that refuses to acknowledge the importance of catering to an online, non-school-specific audience, the schedule is even worse than usual this year. A new record! Why take advantage of the full audience for each meet when you can just slap them all together at the same time? “Yeah, having an audience is good, but you know what would be even better? Dividing it by six.”

As such, your mission is to commandeer all available and unavailable devices and get that new eye-splicing surgery, and you’ll still absolutely miss every important moment of every meet. In a futile attempt to counteract this phenomenon, HERE is this year’s combined rotation schedule for all six regionals so that you can prioritize your eye holes as necessary.

Yeah, thanks so much for that 5:30 ET/2:30 PT beam group. We wouldn’t have wanted to watch all of those rotations anyway (BO-RING), and we’re so glad we can’t.

Anyway, here is all the information you could ever possibly need for all six of Saturday’s regionals in one handy dandy place. Continue reading Regional Championship Headquarters →

Regionals

West Virginia Regional Preview

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And so we arrive at the last, the infamous 6, 7, 18 regional. This regional has a reputation of being the easiest and least interesting of all because it contains the weakest of the #3 teams and therefore should provide the most straightforward qualification road for the #1 and #2 teams. This reputation exists for a reason. The #6 and #7 teams had advanced every single time since 2004…until last year, when Stanford came in as the #18 team and upset everything.

April 1, 4:00 ET/1:00 PT

Teams (starting event)
[6] Alabama (bars)
[7] Michigan (vault)
[18] Southern Utah (bye before floor)
[20] George Washington (bye before bars)
[23] West Virginia (beam)
[31] Kent State (floor)

Individuals
Majesta Valentine, West Chester (AA)
Lyanda Dudley, Cornell (AA)
Caroline Morant, Brown (AA)
Libby Groden, Rutgers (AA)
Tracey Person, Pittsburgh (VT)
Kimberly Stewart, Birdgeport (VT)
Taylor Laymon, Pittsburgh (UB)
Daisy Todd, Temple (UB)
Brianna Comport, Bridgeport (BB, FX)
Kaitlin Green, Cornell (BB)
Maya Reimers, Bridgeport (FX)

The favorites – Alabama and Michigan
Alabama and Michigan are supposed to qualify here, and with hit meets, they will. The high score on the road for any of the other teams in the meet is 196.725, a number that Michigan has bested in five consecutive meets and Alabama has bested in seven consecutive. We’ve seen both teams have struggle-bus meets this year, Alabama with that weekend of 195s and Michigan with some early road debacles, but those were centuries ago. It’s the kind of situation where you hear people use optimistic yet baseless cliches like, “we’ve put those mistakes behind us,” which is true right up until it isn’t.

Still, qualification is in the hands of the top two seeds, and both would have to mimic those struggle-bus meets and count a fall in order to throw this chance away. That statement will provide Michigan with panic flashbacks as the case was exactly the same last year, then Michigan counted a fall on beam and still missed nationals by only .050 in what otherwise would have been a smooth and relaxed qualification journey at home.

For Alabama, SECs proved a fine yet somewhat disheartening experience because they hit a solid 197.400 and didn’t count a mistake, yet still ended up 0.675 behind LSU. Not all that encouraging in terms of title prospects. Alabama needs to perform a little closer to the leading teams during regionals and should be able to improve on an SEC performance that featured a couple dropped falls and weak floor landings. We’ll also need to watch the McNeer situation. She was fitted with her robo-wrist in time to return on beam at SECs, but a best-level Alabama would have her on more than one event. They’ve reconstructed that bars lineup quite a lot recently, the latest move being to take out Sims in favor of Guerra, a solid call, but ideally McNeer would have that spot. Continue reading West Virginia Regional Preview →

Regionals

Illinois Regional Preview

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I have a fun idea. Let’s put all of the most dangerous lower-ranked teams in the same competition and make it way deeper and more competitive than any of the other regionals. WHEEEEEEE!

April 1, 5:00 ET/2:00 PT

Teams (starting event)
[5] UCLA (bars)
[8] Oregon State (vault)
[17] Iowa (bye before floor)
[19] Illinois (bye before bars)
[22] Eastern Michigan (beam)
[26] Ohio State (floor)

Individuals
Nicola Deans, Michigan State (AA)
Rachael Underwood, Western Michigan (AA)
Anna Corbett, Western Michigan (AA)
Ashley White, Centenary (AA)
Jovannah East, Bowling Green (VT, BB)
Lauren Feely, Bowling Green (VT)
Jessie Peszek, Western Michigan (UB, BB)
Hailee Westney, Michigan State (UB)
Elena Lagoski, Michigan State (FX)
Kira Frederick, Michigan State (FX)

The favorites – UCLA and Oregon State
This meet is on a low simmer right now. It has the potential to get delicious. Illinois just scored 196.8 at Big Tens, Iowa scored 196.7 at the same meet, and Eastern Michigan just won MACs with a 196.5, a score that would have qualified from three of the six regionals last season. But, whether this regional is thrilling chaos or super boring will be entirely up to UCLA and Oregon State.

Despite the challenges posed by the #3, #4, #5, and #6 teams in this meet, the Bruins and the Beavs still control their own destinies and can assure qualification simply with their normal performances. UCLA had a weak meet at Pac-12s—not counting a fall but with enough errors to be equivalent to counting a fall—and still scored 197.100, higher than the season highs of all teams in this regional other than Oregon State. That tells us UCLA does have wiggle room but won’t want to cut it that close. The vault situation with the Kramer 1.5 will be fascinating to watch. What confidence is there in these 1.5s? Having 1.5s seems essential if UCLA is going to challenge for more than just a Super Six place…but not if they’re falls. Continue reading Illinois Regional Preview →

Regionals

Arkansas Regional Preview

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April 1, 5:00 ET/2:00 PT

Teams (starting event)
[4] Utah (bars)
[9] Denver (vault)
[16] Cal (bye before floor)
[21] Auburn (bye before bars)
[27] Arkansas (beam)
[28] Central Michigan (floor)

Individuals
Mikailla Northern, Illinois-Chicago (AA)
Alexis Brawner, SEMO (AA)
Ashley Potts, Northern Illinois (AA)
Katherine Prentice, Northern Illinois (AA)
Kierstin Sokolowski, Lindenwood (VT, BB)
Schyler Jones, Texas Woman’s (VT)
Courtney Dowdell, Northern Illinois (UB, FX)
Jamyra Carter, Northern Illinois (UB)
Nichelle Christopherson, Arizona State (BB)
Gabrielle Cooke, Illinois State (FX)

The favorite – Utah
Utah should feel pretty comfortable heading into this regional. Reproducing the routines from Pac-12s would allow plenty of wiggle room for mistakes to crop up here and there and still not compromise qualification.

It is, nonetheless, a challenging group of teams. Denver had a streak of six-straight scores of 196.9+ snapped at Big 12s, and Cal was on track for a 196.8 at Pac-12s before counting a beam fall. It’s typically difficult to keep up those scores at regionals, but Utah should nonetheless anticipate seeing two challengers score toward the high 196s and would therefore need a 197 to feel truly safe. A 197 is not a difficult ask for Utah, but we have seen Utah fall to the mid-196s away against Georgia and Oregon State in the last couple months, meets that did not include counting falls. That’s the kind of performance that must be avoided because a mid-196 would make Utah vulnerable.

In terms of using regionals to judge national competitiveness, Utah is working from a start-value disadvantage on vault, one that was compounded by McNatt’s injury at Pac-12s (Merrell’s 1.5 wasn’t in the lineup, though I expect she’d come back in now). The likes of Lewis and Rowe must continue landing as well as they did at Pac-12s to try to mitigate that SV disadvantage. If they start hopping, those vaults get into the 9.825 zone very quickly and would give up multiple tenths to the teams with three, four, and five 10.0 starts. A best-level Utah would also reduce a tendency toward leg separations on bars, which is a major difference-maker between bars rotations among the strongest teams. Continue reading Arkansas Regional Preview →

Regionals

Florida Regional Preview

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This regional pretty clearly exposes the nonsense of no longer seeding the 19-36 teams and moving back to the allegedly geographical placement of lower-ranked teams, which doesn’t really hold up from a competitive standpoint or a logistical standpoint.

Here, we’ve ended up with a fairly unbalanced regional featuring three teams ranked in the 30s and unlikely to challenge for qualification, while others are much much deeper. On top of that, a team like New Hampshire isn’t really benefiting from the supposed reduction in travel time and costs that geographical placement is supposed to bring because…Florida. Twelve hundred miles away and not exactly in region.

April 1 – 4:00 ET/1:00 PT

Teams (starting event)
[3] Florida (bars)
[10] Georgia (vault)
[15] Missouri (bye before floor)
[30] New Hampshire (bye before bars)
[33] Penn State (beam)
[35] North Carolina (floor)

Individuals
Chelsea Knight, NC State (AA)
Gabriella Yarussi, Towson (AA)
Tyra McKellar, Towson (AA)
Kristen Peterman, Maryland (AA)
Sarah Faller, Maryland (VT, BB)
Paris Phillips, NC State (VT)
Amanda Fillard, NC State (UB)
Melissa Brooker, NC State (UB)
Mary Elle Arduino, Towson (BB)
Alecia Farina, Maryland (FX)
Emily Brauckmuller, Maryland (FX)

The favorite – Florida
In this meet, home-gym advantage should be the least significant of all the regionals. Florida would be the favorite regardless of location.

We’ve seen Georgia and Missouri both score 197s on multiple occasions this season, so Florida may not have quite the same luxury for counting mistakes that Oklahoma and LSU do. Still, with any kind of hit meet, Florida goes through, and counting a fall would probably be fine. Basically, the Gators just need to be sure to avoid another at-LSU situation, a repeat of which seems highly unlikely.

SECs provided us with a useful method to compare Florida and LSU to emphasize what Florida needs to improve to have a shot at the national title. Florida was a touch behind LSU on every piece at SECs, and in particular, landings on bars and balance checks on beam saw Florida’s scores suffer. (They honestly could have suffered more.) The Gators will take heart that those are very fixable problems and not built-in deductions, but we need to see an improvement in those areas for regionals. Continue reading Florida Regional Preview →

Regionals

Nebraska Regional Preview

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Next stop, Nebraska. Or, as it should more accurately be known, the Air Force Regional of Nebraska, starring Air Force.

Let’s just get through that nonsense so we can talk about the actual competition. Because of a geographical quirk, Air Force is the only (non-DIII) team in the North Central region that did not qualify a full team to regionals. That means Air Force was the only team eligible to receive individual spots here and qualified the whole competition roster, including a gymnast for beam who didn’t even make her own team’s postseason beam lineup but had an RQS from earlier in the year.

Meanwhile, gymnasts like Lindsay Lemke (Michigan State, 9.845 RQS on UB), Jordyn Penny (Ball State, 9.840 RQS on UB), India McPeak (Bowling Green, 9.825 RQS on BB), Kayla Rose (Bowling Green, 9.850 RQS on FX), Kaitlyn Menzione (Ball State, 9.850 RQS on FX), Katey Oswalt (Lindenwood, 9.825 RQS on FX), Erin Alderman (TWU, 9.845 RQS on FX), and Anna Martucci (Northern Illinois, 9.845 RQS on FX) didn’t qualify to regionals only because their schools are located close to other schools and for no reason related to gymnastics at all. Almost like this system should be fixed…

The NC region is always sparse, but typically either Iowa State doesn’t qualify and sends a bunch of individuals as well, or the DIII sides qualify people to mix things up. But this year, Iowa State is going as a team and DIII nationals conflicts with regionals (what is WRONG with everyone?), so the DIII schools can’t send anyone.

Anyway, rant over. To the competition.

April 1, 2017 – 5:00 ET/2:00 PT

Teams (starting event)
[2] LSU (bars)
[11] Boise State (vault)
[14] Nebraska (bye before floor)
[25] Arizona (bye before bars)
[29] Iowa State (beam)
[36] Minnesota (floor)

Individuals
Mariana Murphy, Air Force (AA)
Kara Witgen, Air Force (AA)
Anna Salamone, Air Force (VT, UB)
Riley Hill, Air Force (VT, BB)
Jamie Lewis, Air Force (VT, UB, FX)
Darby Germain, Air Force (UB, FX)
Brittney Reed, Air Force (UB, BB, FX)
Rita Koenigbauer, Air Force (BB)
Chelsea Grimison, Air Force (BB)
Casey Bell, Air Force (FX)

The favorite – LSU
LSU occupies an identical position as Oklahoma when it comes to regionals, placed in what should be a very competitive meet but so much stronger than the other teams that it’s going to be a cakewalk, barring a multiple-fall disaster. All things mirroring the regular season, LSU will expect to be about a point clear of the peloton.

Like Oklahoma’s vaulting, LSU’s bars is a strong lineup that nonetheless looks like it could give away valuable tenths in the title hunt, at least in its current state. It has also been LSU’s lowest event score the last four meets in a row, so stepping up the precision on the difficult landings (Zamardi, Harrold) and the form (Harrold, Priessman) will be a critical development looking toward nationals on an event that doesn’t have to be the biggest score but still needs to be over 49.4.

Floor should be right there with the other very top teams, but LSU is spoiled for choice and still has some decisions to make about that lineup. Do you go with the big routine from Edney or play the execution card with Finnegan? (Or go with Priessman if she’s OK again, but it’s unlikely to be worth the risk.) It’s one of those decisions where they’ll probably be fine either way, but it will be revealing about how risk-averse/risk-embracing they’re feeling. Continue reading Nebraska Regional Preview →