Alabama Gymnastics Earns 5-Seed in NCAA Tournament

Another Crimson Tide team is heading out West for the postseason. Alabama gymnastics is the No. 5 overall seed in the 2022 NCAA Tournament.

With five straight scores of 197.500 to close out the regular season, Alabama improved its National Qualifying Score to 197.790 to pass LSU and Auburn in the rankings and earned the fifth seed.

Alabama will travel to Seattle for the regional competition and face No. 12 Michigan State, BYU and the host team Washington. On the other side of the Seattle regional is No. 4 Utah, No. 13 Oregon State, Illinois, Stanford and San Jose State. The top two teams out of each meet will compete in the regional final. Out of the regional final, the top two teams will advance to the national championship meet in Fort Worth, Texas.

“Seattle here we come," Alabama head coach Dana Duckworth said in a press release. "We’ve enjoyed great success at the regional championships in Seattle and we’re looking forward to being back at Alaska Arena for what will be a great competition. This marks the first year that we’ll have a day between our first round of competition and the regional final and we had great success earlier this season when we followed that format during the last weekend of the regular season. Our coaching staff is very proud of this team and excited to continue this amazing season.”

Alabama previously competed in Seattle for the 2012 and 2014 regional competitions. The Crimson Tide holds the NCAA record with 32 regional team titles.

Eight total teams will compete at the NCAA Championships April 14-16, 2022.

The three other regional sites are Auburn, Norman, Oklahoma and Raleigh, North Carolina. Oklahoma is the No. 1 overall seed, followed by Florida, Michigan, Utah, Alabama, LSU, Auburn, Minnesota, California and Kentucky round out the top 10.

The team posted another high score at the SEC Gymnastics Championship with a 197.825 and a second place finish. However, the team was potentially dealt a big blow on the final routine of the meet when junior all-American Luisa Blanco landed awkwardly on her beam routine and suffered a lower leg injury.

Alabama head coach Dana Duckworth has not yet spoken to the media to provide an injury update on Blanco. However, Blanco did share a message on social media yesterday thanking people for their concerns and support and talked about having a comeback.

One day at a time. Love y’all. pic.twitter.com/7SgpLA9Ug8
— Luisa Blanco🇨🇴 (@Luisablanco20_) March 21, 2022

The Seattle Regional begins March 30. Alabama will compete March 31 at 3 p.m. in the firsts session, and if it advances will compete again in the regional final April 2 at 7 p.m.

Alabama Gymnastics at 2022 SEC Championship