Alabama Gymnastics Ready to Earn Its Way Back to Championship Contention
TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama may be coming off an SEC championship and top-five finish nationally with almost every key piece returning from that team, but the 2022 teams wants to make one thing clear: they haven't earned anything yet.
"I tell them all the time the rent is due, and the rent is due every day," said Alabama gymnastics head coach Dana Duckworth. "So we have to really build this team into what its max potential is and what we're capable of doing this season."
Duckworth is entering her eighth year as head coach and 27th overall season with the program. The max potential for this team is another SEC title (which will be held in Birmingham this year) and a national championship. Alabama is ranked No. 6 in the preseason coaches poll.
Senior gymnasts Lexi Graber and Emily Gaskins weren't shy about the team's aspirations for a national title this year. Overall, Alabama has won six national championships, but they haven't won one since 2012.
Graber will be the first gymnast in program history to compete in five different seasons. There have been fifth-year seniors in the past, but that was due to redshirts. Because of the COVID waivers granted by the NCAA, Graber had an extra year of eligibility, and it really wasn't a difficult decision for her to choose to use it or not.
"These are my best friends, and so it was really an easy decision," Graber said. "But I love the sport, and I'm trying to get a national championship with my sisters. So I thought, why not? I’m healthy. I’m happy. I love it here. It’s the best place on earth."
The grad student has quite the resume full of individual accomplishments throughout her time in Tuscaloosa. Graber won the 2021 individual national championship on floor exercise and has won individual SEC championships on balance beam in 2019 and 2021. She has also won NCAA regional championships on the uneven bars.
Her decision to return for the fifth year is obviously a huge boost on the competition floor, but Duckworth said she has seen a new side of leadership in Graber this year.
"Of course having the veterans and the seniors coming back with Lexi being not only an example in the gym, but what I'm seeing now is the vocal piece of where she's really aggressive and not shy to say what is needed to be said to make the team more successful," Duckworth said.
One group that Duckworth called instrumental to the team's success is the junior class that features Makarri Doggette, Ella Burgess, Mati Waligora and 2021 SEC Gymnast of the Year Luisa Blanco. In addition to SEC Gymnast of the Year, Blanco also won an individual national championship on the balance beam last season.
Waligora missed her entire freshman season with an injury, and Burgess was an immediate contributor on vault and beam as a freshman before missing all of last season with an achilles injury. Doggette was also limited last season on some events last season due to a knee injury but still managed to win the SEC individual championship on bars. Blanco is working her way back from an offseason surgery, and Duckworth said all four are in a good place health wise and training to get back into the starting lineups.
According to Duckworth, Blanco is training three events and hopes to add vault back in. Waligora and Doggette are both training all-around, and we could see Waligora compete in the all-around in the first meet against No. 3 Oklahoma on Sunday. And Burgess is training well on beam and vault.
If those four can stay healthy this season, they will all be major contributors on Alabama's quest to repeat as SEC champions.
There are three new faces on the Alabama roster: Corinne Bunagan, Jordyn Paradise and Lilly Hudson. Bunagan is training all four events for Alabama, but missed nearly five months of practice before arriving at Alabama when COVID shut things down at her home gym in New Jersey. Duckworth said that Paradise has been sidetracked by some medical stuff, but has come on strong in the recent weeks leading up to the season.
"She's actually going to be able to perform a vault for us, but her strengths are vaults and bars and floor," Duckworth said. "I've been selective and allowing her to do certain things because we're just trying to get her as healthy as possible."
Hudson is a long-time Alabama commit and grew up training in the same gym in Jacksonville as current Crimson Tide teammate Ella Burgess. Duckworth had high praise for the work ethic she's seen from the freshman early on. She expects Hudson to be in the mix for the starting lineup on all four events.
"I just can't speak enough to how Lilly came in this fall," Duckworth said. "And she has been consistent. She has worked and trained so well. It's not hard to walk in that gym and see that this woman is on fire. She wants to be successful, and she loves Alabama."
Along with Graber and Gaskins, there are four other seniors on this team: Griffin James, Sania Mitchell, Kaylee Quinn and Olympian Shallon Olsen. The junior class has already been touched on, and the sophomore group features Shania Adams and Cameron Machado, who both contributed as freshman last year.
"That culture is one of the biggest things that we get from having such a veteran team," Graber said. "We've worked hard to build a great culture. The freshmen came in and fit in really well and picked up on everything, and we’re really grateful for that. Just knowing that we haven't earned anything just because we won SEC championships last year, we wanted to let everyone know that we need to earn it, just maintaining that culture.”
Graber said the team has done the work, put in the numbers and trusted the coaches' plan to get ready for the start of this 2022 season.
The Crimson Tide is not having to replace many holes from last year's team. The biggest lineup spot they will have to fill is Alonza Klopfer's consistent and steady leadoff spot in the balance beam rotation. Otherwise, Duckworth and Alabama have the pieces in place with both the experience and talent to make a run at a national championship.
The experience of this team has them prepared for the daunting schedule that lays ahead starting out at Oklahoma on Sunday at 2 p.m. on ESPN.
"A lot of these girls, obviously except for three, have been here last year, so we understand each other," Gaskins said. "We know each other. We kind of figure out who needs what and are able to help them. So going into Oklahoma and going into the season really puts us at such a closeness and such a unique unity that our team has. And the freshmen just hopped right in like they've been here for years too. So that kind of relationship that we've built in that sisterhood is gonna take us so far."
