Alabama Gymnastics Shines on Floor to Advance to NCAA Regional Final

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama gymnastics got to experience the bonus of its homefield advantage with its final rotation on the floor exercise during Friday's NCAA Regional meet.

The Coleman Coliseum rallied behind the crowd as the Crimson Tide put up the highest event total of the afternoon for any of the four teams competing with a 49.600 on the floor exercise to secure a spot in the regional final.

"It's always a pressure cooker of an environment, but really a theme for us as a team has been progress, not perfection," Alabama head coach Ashley Johnston said after the meet. "It's one of our values that I really believe in having a growth mindset that you don't go out to compete to be perfect, you go out there to make progress moment by moment, tweak by tweak, performance by performance... I feel like our team did an incredible job of that tonight."

The 49.600 was Alabama's second highest floor total of the season as the Crimson Tide rolls into the Sweet 16.

No. 11 Alabama finished in second place with a 197.275 behind a 197.550 from No. 6 Cal. The Crimson Tide and Golden Bears advance to Sunday's regional final and will find out its two opponents after Friday's evening session.

North Carolina and Iowa are eliminated from the NCAA Tournament after finishing in third and fourth place respectively with a 196.250 and 196.000.

Alabama earned four scores of 9.9 or higher on floor capped by 9.95s from Lilly Hudson and Gabby Gladieux. This marked the 12th time this season that Gladieux has scored a 9.9 or higher on floor. She is ranked fifth nationally on the event.

"That's who we are on floor," Hudson said. "That's normal for us. I think just ending our day like that was a confidence boost and gives us that momentum we need going into Sunday. I'm really proud of ending like that."

The Crimson Tide got off to a bit of a slow start with a 49.150 on vault. Corinne Bunagan was the only Alabama gymnast to stick her landing on the event. But the Crimson Tide got stronger as the meet went along.

Chloe LaCoursiere and Ryan Fuller were the highlights of the uneven bars rotation for the Crimson Tide, both scoring 9.9s. Shania Adams did fall in the anchor spot on balance beam, but Alabama already had five hit routines record, which allowed the Crimson Tide to drop the fall.

Cal had the lead from the first rotation on and never relinquished it.

The evening session with No. 3 Florida, No. 14 Oregon State, NC State and Clemson will be Friday at 7 p.m. The regional final will be Sunday at 5 p.m.

"I feel like this team really put the exclamation mark on a really good night, and I think we have so much more to bring to the table for Sunday at the same time," Johnston said. "We're gonna stay focused on celebrating. That was a great moment, a great day. And now it's all about how do we get those tenths in recovery, in our mindset, and how do we find that edge moving into Sunday where we're just a couple tenths away from being one of the top teams in the country."

This story will be updated with quotes and video.

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