Looking back at NCAA regionals and ahead to Fort Worth — Teams react to making the cut for nationals

Regional finals over, and what regional finals they were!

Seven of the top eight teams (as they were ranked before regionals) made it through to nationals. Cal was the only top-eight seed that did not go through, the result of a surprisingly middle of the road performance at the Tuscaloosa regional for last year’s national runner-up. 

In their place, Alabama has gone through. Ranked 12th after the regular season, Bama put together their strongest showing of the season at their home regional to send Cal and Oregon State home. 

At the Penn State regional, Michigan State made an epic stand to make it to nationals after a 37-year drought by a margin of one-tenth of a point over Kentucky. LSU joins them out of this regional, but showed some weaknesses that I’m sure didn’t go unnoticed by rivals hoping to steal their crown. This was the best meet of all the regional finals, coming down to the final routines and being decided by MSU’s beam, which (as Peng Peng Lee surely knows) is the best possible ending to any championship meet. 

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Over at Utah, I genuinely thought Utah was going to miss out on nationals for the first time ever, and that Denver, who defeated Stanford in the semifinal, would take them out. But Denver faltered on vault, and Utah seized the day on that event and on floor. I’m stoked that UCLA will also make nationals out of this meet. The regional final was not their best-ever showing, but they have proved all season that they aren’t letting small errors topple them as they did previously.

And at Washington, Oklahoma — bolstered by Jordan Bowers’ three perfect 10s, on vault, bars and floor — overcame last year’s catastrophic regional-final loss and will move on to Fort Worth alongside Missouri. Mizzou has been steadily on the rise for several years and I’m excited to see them get stronger each season. Cal, however, will not be pleased that, had they competed in Washington, it would have been them on a plane to Texas instead of Missouri. This meet was much more of a blowout than the others, particularly considering the excitement of Penn State.

One aspect of regionals I love is watching individual competitors shine, and seeing how their teams embrace them. One, Mary McDonough of Washington, has made it all the way through to nationals as an individual in the all-around. I’m stoked for her, especially given her team didn’t make it to regionals at all (and was playing host). And I’m heartbroken for Chloe Negrete of North Carolina State, who clinched the beam individual spot for nationals out of the Tuscaloosa regional final, only to tear her Achilles on the final floor routine of her career there. Similarly bummed to see Frankie Price of Arkansas injured after her fire season.

Skyelar Kerico of Penn, competing at Penn State, performed beautifully and set an AA record for her team. Maggie Slife also set an AA record for Air Force. Rutgers athletes Delaney Adrian and Gabrielle Dildy put in the work after Rutgers fell to Clemson in the play-in at Tuscaloosa. And we will see Oregon State superstar and casual two-time Olympian Jade Carey compete all-around at nationals alongside Olympic alternate Joscelyn Roberson of Arkansas. Excited to see they both hit their routines when they counted and made it to Texas. 

I’ll put together a nationals preview for next week and we’ll see if my predictions stand up! 

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Other gym news

The Balance Beam Situation’s Spencer Barnes liveblogged all of regionals while recovering from neuropathy caused by chemo. The man’s a superhero. Go read everything. (I’m even willing to forgive the lack of GIFs.) 

College Gym News (CGN) also liveblogged every meet, and they break theirs up into the individual meets (Spencer does his by day), so they’re a little easier to find if you follow a particular team.

CGN also has the list of individual qualifiers, a nationals simulator and, of course, the regionals leos.  

USA Gymnastics announced the list of international-meet qualifiers out of last week’s training camp:

And the Jesolo squad’s there, ready to go:

The LA Olympics will feature a mixed-team event! This is super exciting, particularly as female gymnasts have fewer opportunities to win medals than their male counterparts and this gives them a new one:

The International Olympic Committee just released the full event program for LA. 

Michigan’s Carly Bauman and Reyna Guggino will take sixth years as Wolverines: 

Five at The IX: We’re going to Nattys! 

UCLA’s gymnasts and coach Janelle McDonald talk to the media after qualifying to nationals in Utah:

Utah, who won their home regional, also did press:

Surprise nationals qualifiers Alabama did too, at their home regional: 

And Michigan State made a fun video: