The second semifinal is comprised of No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 4 Alabama, No. 5 Utah, No. 8 UCLA, No. 9 California and No. 12 Nebraska.
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Florida won its team semifinal with a score of 197.475 to advance to Saturday’s Super Six finals. WASHINGTON’s Allison Northey and OREGON STATE’s Madeline Gardiner will compete in the all-around. In fact, it is the fourth-consecutive meet in which LSU will compete bars, beam, floor and vault in that order. Mills and Northey will compete in the early session, while Gardiner, Perez, and Allex will compete in the evening session.
As any fan of collegiate gymnastics might tell you, that has become less and less true these last few years.
“In this event, in this environment, with the kind of fight this team had, yeah, it’s a win”, LSU coach D-D Breaux said.
The entire NCAA Championships will be streamed live through ESPN. It is the same rotation the Tide used on the way to winning the 2016 NCAA Tuscaloosa Regional Championship two weeks ago.
Florida and LSU ran away from the competition in the first session. Jones led off on the apparatus with a 9.825, and Capps contributed a 9.8125 to the team score. Allex is the Sun Devils’ first NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championships qualifier since 2010. She has posted an 9.875 or higher seven times in 2016. She was also named Big Ten Gymnast of the Year for the second straight season. The Golden Bears will compete in the second semifinal session on Friday.
Saturday’s NCAA gymnastics championship was a dandy. However, junior Madeline Gardiner and senior Risa Perez will represent the Beavers in Fort Worth. Junior Allan Bower placed eighth in the all-around with a two-day mark of 172.800 while senior Kanji Oyama came in 11th with a score of 170.400. She tied with Georgia’s Brittany Rogers on bars and UCLA’s Danusia Francis on beam. Georgia’s Brandie Jay and Alabama’s Katie Bailey tied for the vault title (9.95). The last time an OREGON STATE gymnast won a national title was 1993.
The Cornhuskers and Golden Bears seem the least likely to pose a threat for a berth in the Super Six. “One of girls this morning, when she woke up, tweeted, ‘It felt like Christmas Eve last night-I couldn’t got to bed anticipating today, ‘ It turns out that’s exactly what it was”, said 10th-year OU head coach K.J. Kindler.
Cal has lost to the Cardinal five times this season, including a meet January 24, when the Bears hosted both Stanford and the Buckeyes, but ultimately fell to fourth place. Bailey’s individual championships marked the 26 one in Alabama history, the fifth on the vault specifically.
Stanford’s Elizabeth Price, the only individual event victor returning from past year, won’t repeat her crown on vault. The Gymdogs remained solid and grabbed the final spot with a 196.725 for an SEC sweep of the session. Live television coverage of the Apr. 15 semifinal meets and the Apr. 16 Super Six will be provided by ESPNU. The two most recent of the six national championships came in 2011 and 2012. This has been one of her goals so we are really excited for her. To have the UW represented on the national stage is good for our program. Also in 2015, UTAH claimed the NCAA individual event title on the uneven bars.
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They’ll have a chance to redeem themselves Friday at this year’s rendition of the NCAA Team Semifinal. Oklahoma took home the championship during the 2014 season. She is only woman ever to win US, world and NCAA titles in the all-around.
