It’s an embarrassment of riches this season for Florida, a team that returns all of its final competition routines from the 2017 season and now adds four former elites in its freshman class of six. 

FLORIDA 2018 – Returning Routines
VAULT McMurtry – 9.950 Slocum – 9.945 Boren – 9.925 Baker – 9.898 Hundley – 9.850 Chant – 9.831 Alexander – 9.804 Gowey – 9.800 Cheney – 9.750	BARS McMurtry – 9.930 Hundley – 9.925 Baker – 9.880 Boren – 9.860 Gowey – 9.850 Chant – 9.820 McLaughlin – 9.800
BEAM McMurtry – 9.925 Boren – 9.900 Gowey – 9.895 Hundley – 9.880 Baker – 9.855 McLaughlin – 9.845 Cheney – 9.735	FLOOR Baker – 9.945 Boren – 9.945 Hundley – 9.885 Slocum – 9.870 McMurtry – 9.846 McLaughlin – 9.805 Gowey – 9.700 Chant – 9.338

The Gators should not lack choices, so evaluation of the 14ish potential routines this freshman class brings is less about whether they’re good—they are—and more about whether they’re actually going to make it into an already-established Florida lineup this season (or are worth pushing to make that lineup).

Alyssa Baumann

The most famous member of the new class is beam-queen Alyssa Baumann, who made the 2014 world championship team based on her beam prowess, then finished 7th all-around at 2015 and 2016 nationals before having to pull out of the Olympic Trials with an elbow injury. That same injury kept her out of her would-be freshman year at Florida in 2017, with Baumann electing to stay in Texas to rehab her injury before joining Florida this season.

Discussions of Baumann’s contributions must begin with beam, where her grace and flexibility make that event an obvious yes. If anyone should be an NCAA 9.9+ on beam, it’s Baumann. The only real question will be the composition of her routine because she has so many elite-level skills to choose from, but only the most precise of the bunch should be included in NCAA since she needs to be getting 10s.

We won’t see the Arabian in NCAA because there’s literally no point to throwing that kind of risk, but the excellent Onodi has been retained, connecting right into a layout stepout series to show she’s not skimping on the acro series either.

As for the other pieces, Baumann never quite had the difficulty or health to make bars a strength in elite, but she definitely had the line and execution through her toe point and handstands, which should make bars an equal strength to beam for her now that we’re in the land of NCAA composition.

On floor, I’m impressed that Baumann is training a DLO since I had her down as a classic “I get to downgrade my tumbling in NCAA and no one’s going to care because look how pretty my leaps are” nominee. If she can stay healthy doing real tumbling, I’m all for it, though with the depth Florida has, floor and vault are less important events for Baumann. She can get 9.9s on floor, but it’s not as “we’re going to need you to anchor and be the best” as beam will be.

We haven’t seen vaults from Baumann so far in preseason training, and while she had a DTY in elite that was quite nice, she’s not necessarily one I’d pick to retain big vault difficulty in NCAA.

Continue reading 2018 Freshmen – Florida →

Among the major teams, Oregon State was worst-hit by routine departures after the 2017 season, and it’s not even close. With lost sets from Gardiner, McMillan, Aufiero, Colussi-Pelaez, Jimenez, and Ricci, the Beavs return very few routines that even made cameo appearances last season, let alone the final postseason lineups.

OREGON STATE – 2018 Returning Routines
VAULT Dessaints – 9.900 Jacobsen – 9.855 Gill – 9.785 Khamedoost – 9.775	BARS Singley – 9.830 Jacobsen – 9.815 Khamedoost – 9.780 M Colussi-Pelaez – 9.460 Gill – 9.250
BEAM Dessaints – 9.895 Gill – 9.795 Davis – 9.650 Lowery – 9.375	FLOOR Lowery – 9.860 Jacobsen – 9.775 Gill – 9.763

OSU will have to find a bunch of new routines for 2018, a minimum of three on every event, just to have a respectable number of options that can fill out lineups and project against injury. Putting that entire burden on the new freshman class of five and transfer Dagen would be unfair and unrealistic. (We’re going to need to see much more from the sophomores than we did last year). Still, most of the freshmen should be able to provide a couple competition routines apiece as part of the project.

Kaitlyn Yanish

The star of the class and most likely freshman all-arounder (a.k.a., please get into the all-around immediately) is Kaitlyn Yanish, who finished second AA in her division at 2017 JO nationals. The highlight event for Yanish is floor, with a DLO that provides a necessary bump in both difficulty and execution among the current floor options. I expect her to anchor.

I’m sure Oregon State would have loved for Yanish to have more than a Yurchenko full on vault given her power (they do still have 10.0 starts from Dessaints and Jacobsen), but her full in JO was quick and high and ready to be used weekly.

Almost like you could add another 1/2 twist to…OK I’ll stop.

Expect Yanish to provide an important routine on beam as well.

She proves in this routine that she can layout stepout and make them pretty crisp. Leaps may be an issue (that switch side probably needs to go), but there is enough there to work with nonetheless.  Continue reading 2018 Freshmen – Oregon State →

Utah was planning to bring in a comparatively small class of two this year—along with Central Michigan, the only teams in the top 30 with freshman classes of two or fewer gymnasts—though the late addition of Lauren Wong, who starts in January, brings the Utes up to three.

The newbies will be expected to fill the void left by Rowe and Schwab on a team that theoretically hasn’t lost enough from last season to be in desperate need of routines but could use bolstering on several events, especially with a couple gymnasts still in “return from injury” mode.

UTAH 2018 – Returning Routines
VAULT Skinner – 9.925 Merrell-Giles – 9.855 Lewis – 9.850 Lee – 9.840 Roberts – 9.785 Tessen – 9.783 Muhaw – 9.705 McNatt – 9.688 Reinstadtler – 9.500	BARS Skinner – 9.905 Lewis – 9.880 Lee – 9.845 Reinstadtler – 9.840 Merrell-Giles – 9.835 Tessen – 9.808
BEAM Skinner – 9.900 Lee – 9.890 Reinstadtler – 9.850 Merrell-Giles – 9.840 McNatt – 9.838 Stover – 9.830	FLOOR Skinner – 9.965 Lewis – 9.890 Reinstadtler – 9.875 Roberts – 9.845 Merrell-Giles – 9.840 Tessen – 9.825 Lee – 9.775

Sydney Soloski

A Canadian elite, Soloski finished 4th at Elite Canada and 3rd at Gymnix in 2015, then received the Ljubljana World Cup assignment in 2016, where she took silver on floor and bronze on beam.

Beam and floor have typically been Soloski’s most competitive events, so we’ll start there.

That DLO should come in handy. It’s rather arched but also quite high in that Fragapane-spark-plug style that her floor work evokes. This complement of tumbling passes would make Soloski a compelling nominee for a place of honor in the lineup near Skinner.

As for the other pieces, Utah has a bit more need for numbers on bars and beam this season than on vault and floor, and I can certainly see Soloski coming into that beam lineup. She looks crisp and extended on acrobatic elements like the front aerial and the layout stepout series. Continue reading 2018 Freshmen – Utah →