FORT WORTH, Texas — With all due respect to No. 2 Oklahoma, No. 3 Florida, No. 7 Missouri and No. 11 Alabama, the most difficult of the two national semifinals that will take place Thursday at the NCAA women’s gymnastics championships should be the evening session, the one that pits No. 1 LSU, No. 4 Utah, No. 5 UCLA and No. 8 Michigan State against each other.
The top two finishing teams in each national semifinal will advance to Saturday’s national championship meet and the quartet of the Tigers, Red Rocks, Bruins and Spartans is about as difficult a competition to predict as any in recent years.
LSU is the reigning national champion and should be considered a favorite to win again, but was nearly upset at regionals by Michigan State. Utah has made it to the national championship meet the last four years — finishing third overall each time — meaning the majority of its team has been there and done this before, but LSU, Michigan State and UCLA all outscored the Red Rocks at least once during the regionals round.
Utah lost to LSU this season, but beat UCLA twice head-to-head. UCLA defeated Michigan State twice, but hasn’t beaten another team that qualified for nationals. LSU has defeated six of the seven other teams that qualified for nationals, but didn’t face off against UCLA.
It will all make for some excellent competition Thursday night at 7 p.m. MDT.
As difficult as predicting the meet is, there are some key indicators — events on which if certain teams perform well could push things decidedly in their favor. As long as they compete like usual on the other three.
Nothing is guaranteed in gymnastics, but the course of these particular events will almost certainly determine which two teams among LSU, Utah, UCLA and Michigan State will survive and advance.
Michigan State on floor exercise
The Spartans have had two strong events (bars and vault) and two weaker events (beam and floor) this season. They close the national semifinal Thursday night with their two weakest.
This section could be about the Spartans’ beam lineup, which is the second-worst (on total this season) of the eight teams that qualified for nationals. But Michigan State was the worst floor team all season (among the teams that made it to nationals) and floor is the Spartans’ final event of the meet, which makes it especially intriguing.
Floor scores have a tendency to rise as competitions progress and LSU, UCLA and Utah are all top-six teams on floor this season, with the Bruins ranked No. 1, the Tigers ranked No. 3 and the Red Rocks ranked No. 6.
There is a world where Michigan State benefits from the routines that went before it, scores better than its regular-season national qualifying score (NQS) of 49.420 and that is enough for the Spartans to pull off an upset or two and clinch a berth to the national championship meet.
There is another world where the judges see the excellence of floor routines that come before Michigan State and judge the Spartans harsher because their routines do not compare as favorably. After all, LSU will compete right before the Spartans on floor and competing alongside the Tigers will be Oregon State star Jade Carey.
Michigan State has had moments of greatness on floor this season. And as recently as the regional finals the Spartans posted a 49.425 on the event. A 49.5 or better on floor Thursday will make things very interesting where Michigan State is concerned, considering how good the Spartans are on vault (the most volatile event) and uneven bars. Anything below that, and the odds are good that Michigan State’s season will be over.
Utah on balance beam
Balance beam was, for almost the entire regular season, Utah’s strongest event. The Red Rocks entered April a top-three beam team, behind only Oklahoma and Florida. Making things all the more impressive, Utah was No. 3 despite not having hit the same highs that either UCLA or LSU had during the year. Yet Utah still ranked ahead of them, evidence of consistent greatness on the part of the Red Rocks.
That all changed during regionals, though. In back-to-back competitions, Utah competed far below its capabilities, with nerves wreaking havoc. Those struggles ultimately didn’t cost Utah, but they did put the Red Rocks in some pretty uncomfortable situations.
Ahead of the national championships, Utah coach Carly Dockendorf said that the team is changing its beam lineup (no new gymnasts, just the order of when gymnasts compete) in an attempt to jumpstart things.
Beam is Utah’s first event Thursday night. A strong showing by the Red Rocks (anything 49.5 or better) should usher in a fairly easy competition. Starting strong on beam could, maybe should, quash any nerves Utah has. From there, the Red Rocks have proven among the best in the country on the remaining three events.
Struggle on beam for a third-consecutive meet, though, and Utah will all but surely be in last place after the first rotation. Needing to rally from that will only add pressure. The more pressure, the more likely the Red Rocks will press too much and mistakes will follow.
Vault has been the Red Rocks’ weakest event this season, for years now really, but the team has shown more and more promise on that event, with five gymnasts currently in the lineup all capable of sticking 10.0-valued vaults.
No, on Thursday Utah’s fate will likely follow its beam performance.
UCLA on vault
UCLA is elite on floor, arguably the best in the country. The Bruins are a great beam team, too, top four during the regular season. UCLA’s worst event has been bars, but it is vault where the Bruins’ season will be made or broken.
UCLA is an interesting vault team. Ranked No. 7 at the end of the regular season, the Bruins have capable vaulters.
Mika Webster-Longin tied for the vault title in the Salt Lake City regional final. Chae Campbell consistently scores between a 9.90 and 9.95 (she competes a Yurchenko Full, which is a 9.95-valued vault). Jordan Chiles is one of the better vaulters in the world, though the quality of her vaults this collegiate season have been a matter of debate.
There are other capable vaulters on the team, too.
The problem is, UCLA has not been consistently good on vault this season as a team and what’s more, the Bruins haven’t really demonstrated the ability to score at a high level on the event (UCLA’s regular-season high was 49.350).
Now, UCLA did score well on vault at regionals, topping out with a 49.475 in the Salt Lake City regional final. But the Bruins, like every team there, got some gifts from the judges and UCLA has not proven capable of hitting that sort of score consistently.
UCLA will compete on vault during the second rotation Thursday night. The Bruins should have all sorts of momentum after starting the meet off on floor. Have a vault rotation similar (score-wise) to what it did in the regional final and UCLA will be ideally positioned to advance, even if the bars rotation falls a little flat.
Come back to earth on vault, though, and compete like they did for much of the season, and the Bruins will be hard-pressed to make up lost ground with bars up next.
LSU on balance beam
The Tigers have few weaknesses. They are the No. 1 team in the country for good reason. And they rank in the top three nationally on vault, bars and floor.
The only real possible weakness for LSU is beam, where the Tigers rank No. 6. Beam being a weakness for any team isn’t exactly unusual. For years many have considered it the make-or-break event and the event with the smallest margin for error. Six inches across and all of that.
What’s more, it isn’t really that big of a weakness for LSU. Sure, the Tigers rank No. 6, but LSU had the third-highest score of any team in the country on the event during the regular season and the Tigers’ average score on beam was the second-highest overall, trailing only Oklahoma.
Konnor McClain, Kailin Chio, Ashley Cowan and Aleah Finnegan have all been great on the event this season, near-guaranteed 9.9s every time out.
And yet, beam is the easiest event on which to make mistakes. It is also the easiest event on which to fall. And it is the easiest event for things to snowball on.
An argument could be made that vault is actually the event to watch with LSU. After all, the Tigers struggled on vault in the regional final in Pennsylvania and those struggles opened the door for a near-upset by Michigan State. Moreover, beam was LSU’s best event in that competition, pretty much far and away. What’s more, LSU finishes the meet Thursday night on vault. If the meet is close, the pressure will be unbearable.
But LSU has been too good on vault, for too many years now, to pinpoint that as the event that will make or break the Tigers. Could it happen? Sure. It happened to Oklahoma last year in Fort Worth and LSU did prove fallible on vault at regionals.
In all likelihood, though, the most likely event for LSU to mess up on is beam. And enough mistakes, even from a team like LSU, would leave the Tigers vulnerable.