Gymnastics: Road to Nationals Begins!

CU-UF

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The Gators start their quest for another Natty this weekend in Athens. The regionals start today with the play-in matches, followed by two quad meets on Friday and a regional final quad meet on Saturday with the top two teams from that session advancing to Nationals. Playtime is over, as they say because an off night now means you are done for the season. While Florida is entering the regional as the #1 overall seed, they are also entering on a slump with the implosion at the SEC tourney and All-world Trinity Thomas injured for over a month now. The Athens regional is probably the toughest regional with Minnesota, Denver, and the always home-cooked Georgia squad. All the other top seeds have to deal with maybe one or two squads that have the ability to score competitively with them. UF should have no problem with the Friday Semifinal (7pm ESPN3) but the Saturday final (7pm ESPN3) will see them matched up most likely with Minnesota and/or Denver/Georgia. UF could not afford an off meet and expect to advance. The biggest questions are 1. Is Trinity Thomas back on all 4 events and fully recovered and 2. Is Payton Richards mentally there after having a disaster SEC championship with 3 falls including landing on her rear on a Y1.5 vault. 3. Is Alyssa Baumann up to the task on bars? After making a feel good story nailing her first competition routine in 4 years on bars, the last 3 times have been falls. While she did have a huge 9.9+ score on that one hit, UF cannot afford the lost momentum and added pressure of having a fall on a rotation.

Not sure how Rowland is going to approach Friday, as she does have the luxury of playing with line-ups since it is about as much of a guarantee that UF will advance. Does she keep things as is to let them work it out? Does she give Trinity another day of rest? Does she change out Richards and Baumann to see if someone performs up to task? Hopefully the SEC champ was an aberration and UF coasts through to nationals, which should happen if historical scores are held. Otherwise it would be a huge disappointment and Rowland would be squarely on the hot-seat. Go Gators!!
 

Towels 'N Sporks

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Wow you really think Rowland will be on the hot seat even though they won the regular season SEC championship? Crazy.

Anyway, good post and thanks for the update as I don't follow gymnastics that closely until the super 6 and whatever meet happens right before that!
 

MidwestChomp

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Wow you really think Rowland will be on the hot seat even though they won the regular season SEC championship? Crazy.

Anyway, good post and thanks for the update as I don't follow gymnastics that closely until the super 6 and whatever meet happens right before that!

The super 6 is no longer. The NCAA changed up the format and the finals is 4 teams. I doubt Rowland will be on the hot seat, but if they fail big time like they did 2 years ago who knows. She does have an incredible recruiting class coming in with world class gymnastics.
 

CU-UF

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Wow you really think Rowland will be on the hot seat even though they won the regular season SEC championship? Crazy.

Anyway, good post and thanks for the update as I don't follow gymnastics that closely until the super 6 and whatever meet happens right before that!
I do think the pressure will be on her. As Midwest mentioned, 2 years ago they completely failed to advance out of the regional as the top seed. Coupled with the consistent failures at the SEC Championships (I think the last 3 years we have performed poorly and not won despite winning the regular season title). Plus I am closely watching if she can close the deal on next years recruits Riley McCusker and Morgan Hurd. Both may be going to the Olympics and will be pulled to go pro. If that happens next years squad is going to be a huge question mark.
 

CU-UF

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UF will be going against Illinois, Central Michigan and NC State tonight after NC State won the play-in match. Paper is reporting today that Trinity Thomas will be out for this regional competing in perhaps only bars. If, Gators advance to nationals, she will be fully back. UF is in extreme danger this weekend of not advancing, they will all have to be locked in.
 

MidwestChomp

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UF will be going against Illinois, Central Michigan and NC State tonight after NC State won the play-in match. Paper is reporting today that Trinity Thomas will be out for this regional competing in perhaps only bars. If, Gators advance to nationals, she will be fully back. UF is in extreme danger this weekend of not advancing, they will all have to be locked in.

The team has the talent to advance. They may not beat Georgia, but they should beat the others.
 

CU-UF

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The team has the talent to advance. They may not beat Georgia, but they should beat the others.
Im actually more concerned with Denver and Minnesota. Denver beat Oklahoma for the Big 12 championship and have some 10 routines on bars. Minnesota has Lexi Ramler who is their Trinity Thomas with 10 on vault and beam. They also beat Michigan for big 10 championship. Of course Georgia at home, you never know.
 

no1g8r

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Good write-ups, except there is no way Jenny Rowland is on the hot seat no matter how the remainder of the season goes. She’s one of the top two coaches in the country, along with Oklahoma’s KJ Kindler. Who would Florida get to replace her?
 

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Trinity Thomas competed in Bars only.....................10.000
 

CU-UF

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Gators did what they needed to do last night. Definitely washed the stink of the SEC Championships off. Pulling Payton off of floor and vault seemed to work, although still wish they could get that Yurchenkio 1.5 from Richards instead of the full from Baumann, but a reasonably landed full is still better than a bad 1.5 Rowland also took Baumann off bars and replaced with the freshman Gallentine who has been up and down all season, fortunately up last night and hopefully up tonight.

If UF scores another 197.95 tonight, we will be comfortably heading to nationals. But the pressure amps up tonight, two other squads, Denver and Minnesota definitely have the ability to keep up with the Gators if they are flat. UF starts on vault so will get the worst event out of the way. Depending on how well they do the first rotation, we will have a good idea of the fight they may or may not have the rest of the night. I expect them to be in 3rd place after 1 st rotation, just have to see how big of a gap between the other two.
 

CU-UF

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Gators move through to nationals! On one hand some questionable coaching, on the other hand the team showed some grit and determination. The questionable coaching is how they did not have the girls mentally prepared to go last night. Nya Reed having a massive mental block on vault at this level is almost unacceptable. She was not able to even vault because she mentally broke down and could not run down the runway, leaving UF with only 5 vaulters and a low first rotation. And then we get to Payton Richards on beam, who has another mental block and forgets to do her acro sequence on beam resulting in a low 9.5 score, again putting the team in questionable territory.

They showed grit and determination heading to the final rotation when SJS tore her Achilles on warm up and then her back up injured her ankle on warm up too leaving Payton Richards to go in with no warm up. While she still only got a 9.65 with an out of bounds, it was a solid routine.

Now on to prime-time Nationals! Trinity Thomas should return to the all-around which is the only way they are going to have a chance to win it all. In the meantime get some psych people to work on the team, because something mentally is not clicking, maybe it was the added pressure of not having Trinity's 9.95's available? Either way they need to lock in and bring it, because the other squads are gunning for UF. Two weeks! on ABC, full ESPN coverage! Go Gators!
 

MidwestChomp

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Gators move through to nationals! On one hand some questionable coaching, on the other hand the team showed some grit and determination. The questionable coaching is how they did not have the girls mentally prepared to go last night. Nya Reed having a massive mental block on vault at this level is almost unacceptable. She was not able to even vault because she mentally broke down and could not run down the runway, leaving UF with only 5 vaulters and a low first rotation. And then we get to Payton Richards on beam, who has another mental block and forgets to do her acro sequence on beam resulting in a low 9.5 score, again putting the team in questionable territory.

They showed grit and determination heading to the final rotation when SJS tore her Achilles on warm up and then her back up injured her ankle on warm up too leaving Payton Richards to go in with no warm up. While she still only got a 9.65 with an out of bounds, it was a solid routine.

Now on to prime-time Nationals! Trinity Thomas should return to the all-around which is the only way they are going to have a chance to win it all. In the meantime get some psych people to work on the team, because something mentally is not clicking, maybe it was the added pressure of not having Trinity's 9.95's available? Either way they need to lock in and bring it, because the other squads are gunning for UF. Two weeks! on ABC, full ESPN coverage! Go Gators!

You were right about Georgia. Thought they would get some home cooking.

What the heck happened to Nya? I saw the score and thought, I've never seen anything below an 8 at the level.

That is horrible about SJS. What else can get thrown at these women? All that said, they still scored a 197.7. Get Trinity back and we're over 198 which puts us in a good spot.

We are lucky to be on the side of the bracket we are. The other side is a murderers row challenge. I expect us to be in the final 4. Go Gators!
 

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