The day has arrived, when twelve become six and you become vaguely emotionally unhinged again.
LIVE SCORES – SEMIFINAL 1
LIVE SCORES – SEMIFINAL 2
LIVE STREAMS Continue reading National Semifinals Live Blog
Tag Archives: Denver
National Championship Preview Part 1: Western Semifinal
By the magic of the draw (and by magic, I of course mean trash), the semifinals have been divided by conference and geography, with the eastern-ish teams from the SEC and Big Ten placed in the evening session and the western-ish teams from the Pac-12 and Big 12 placed in the afternoon session. It’s pretty racist.
We’re a little more than a week away from nationals now, so to begin preparing, here’s a preview of the race to qualify to Super Six from the first semifinal, the one that appears the more straightforward of the two but is certainly not open-and-shut.
April 14, 12:00 CT
Teams (starting event)
[1] Oklahoma (bye before floor)
[2] Utah (vault)
[3] UCLA (bye before bars)
[4] Oregon State (floor)
[5] Denver (beam)
[6] Washington (bars)
Individuals
Jessica Yamzon, Arkansas, AA (rotating w/ Utah)
Alexis Mattern, Ohio State, AA (rotating w/ UCLA)
Shani Remme, Boise State, AA (rotating w/ Washington)
Angel Metcalf, Iowa, AA (rotating w/ Denver)
Katie Becker, Auburn, AA (rotating w/ Oklahoma)
Haylee Young, Iowa State, AA (rotating w/ Oregon State)
Braie Speed, Arkansas, VT (rotating w/Oklahoma)
Samantha Cerio, Auburn, UB (rotating w/ Utah)
Clair Kaji, Iowa, BB (rotating w/ Utah)
Oklahoma
As much as a sure thing to qualify to Super Six exists, Oklahoma is it. Oklahoma’s score from regionals was nearly a point better than any other team in this semifinal and was .625 better than any other team in the country. The margin for error the top teams usually have heading into regionals is what Oklahoma has in the semifinal. Counting a fall would be fine, and that’s pretty rare for nationals.
My primary areas to watch at regionals were vault, where Oklahoma responded with basically-almost sticks from Dowell, Jackson, and Nichols for 49.575, and the Maggie Nichols AA, which she did and scored 39.750. So, I’d say both of those were a check mark. A dose of floor landings was the only knock on Oklahoma’s regionals performance, which would serve them very well if replicated at nationals. I’ll get into the title race in more detail in a later preview, but it would be quite the ridiculous shock if Oklahoma were not to advance to Super Six somehow. Continue reading National Championship Preview Part 1: Western Semifinal
Arkansas Regional Preview
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
Friday Live Blog – March 10, 2017
| Friday, March 10 |
Scores | Watch |
| 7:00 ET/4:00 PT – [22] West Virginia @ [3] Florida | LINK | SEC+ |
| 7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Towson @ NC State | LINK | ACC+ |
| 7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Ball State @ Kent State | LINK | FREE |
| 7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Temple @ William & Mary | LINK | FB |
| 7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Winona State @ UW-Eau Claire | LINK | |
| 7:30 ET/4:30 PT – UW-La Crosse @ Gustavus Adolphus | LINK | |
| 8:00 ET/5:00 PT – [12] Kentucky @ [15] Missouri | LINK | SEC+ |
| 8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Pitt @ [20] Auburn | LINK | SEC+ |
| 8:00 ET/5:00 PT – San Jose State, Centenary @ Arkansas | LINK | |
| 8:00 ET/5:00 PT – Lindenwood @ Illinois State | FREE | |
| 8:30 ET/5:30 PT – New Hampshire @ [2] LSU | LINK | SEC+ |
| 8:30 ET/5:30 PT – Iowa State @ [6] Alabama | LINK | SEC+ |
| 9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [8] Denver @ [10] Boise State | LINK | FREE |
| 9:00 ET/6:00 PT – [21] Southern Utah @ [23] Utah State | LINK | FREE |
| 9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Arizona @ BYU | LINK | FREE |
| 9:00 ET/6:00 PT – Sacramento State, Bridgeport @ Arizona State | LINK | FREE |
| 10:00 ET/7:00 PT – Air Force @ UC Davis | LINK | FB |
Today is made for bopping around from meet to meet as they become interesting (or the opposite of that). West Virginia/Florida is the primary meet starting off the slate, but keep an eye on the scores coming from Ball State and Towson as well. Both teams are teetering on the edge of falling out of regionals contention but could save themselves with mid-195s today and remain in contention on the final weekend.
Here is our key group:
With those mid-195s, Towson and Ball State would move up to the 194.9 territory. It’s still out, but it’s at least within striking distance. Arizona State is in action later on and in a similar position, but what’s really hurting their chances is a low road score, which can’t be dropped until Pac-12s. To give themselves a chance at Pac-12s, though, they’ll need another good beating-Arizona-level 195 today. Continue reading Friday Live Blog – March 10, 2017