Season Best 198.175 Sends Alabama Gymnastics to NCAA Championships
A whirlwind week ended in triumph for Alabama gymnastics. Just five days after their plane out to Seattle had to make an emergency landing and two days after putting up the third-best score of the season, the Crimson Tide posted its best score of the year with a 198.175 at the Seattle Regional Finals to advance to the NCAA Championships.
Alabama finished in second place behind No. 4 Utah's 198.200, but the top two teams from each regional move on to the national championship meet. The Red Rocks held the lead after the first two rotations. A 49.625 on beam during the third rotation helped No. 5 Alabama take the lead and it kept building that lead on floor, but Utah closed out beam with a 9.975 and two 10s to win the meet.
Even having Luisa Blanco and Makarri Doggette limited to just the bars rotation, Alabama was able to post a season high overall score. The Crimson Tide started strong with its best vault rotation of the season and never took its foot off the pedal.
"I’m so incredibly proud of their fight tonight, they never gave up, they never looked back," Alabama coach Dana Duckworth said in a press release. "They were fierce, they were intense and they were warriors on every single event. I’m especially thrilled with the way we closed the meet on beam and floor tonight. Those rotations were extraordinary. Our ladies came to play this week, they came to earn their spot in Fort Worth, and that’s just what they did."
The cherry on top of the night was the floor lineup. Seniors Emily Gaskins and Griffin James both scored career highs to lead Alabama to a 49.650 on floor exercise. James has been battling her way back from an Achilles injury she suffered in 2020 and competed in the floor lineup for the first time this season on Thursday and bested that routine with a 9.925 Saturday night. Super senior Lexi Graber closed out the meet with a bang with her sixth score of 9.95 or better on floor this season.
On vault, Gaskins, Kaylee Quinn and Lilly Hudson all stuck their landings to score 9.9, 9.95 and 9.95 respectively to pace the Crimson Tide to a season high 49.500 on the apparatus. Gaskins just rejoined the vault lineup on Thursday to take the place of the injured Blanco, and was the only Alabama gymnast to not compete a 10.0 start value, but maximized her routine by sticking her Yurchenko full.
Alabama once again proved why its one of the best beam teams in the country with four scores of 9.925 or better. Ella Burgess led off with a career high 9.95, and Shania Adams also scored a 9.95, the best of her career.
As Duckworth said in her post meet interview on ESPN, there is still more in the tank for this team. Their theme all season has been TKO (Total Knockout) and they will soon get the chance to deliver the final blow at the NCAA finals in Fort Worth April 14-16 with No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 2 Florida, No. 3 Michigan, No. 4 Utah, No. 7 Auburn, No. 8 Minnesota and No. 11 Missouri.
