Gymnastics Goes for Fifth NCAA Championship Saturday
4/16/2011 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
April 16, 2011
CLEVELAND - The Alabama gymnastics team goes for its fifth NCAA Championship today here in the Wolstein Center on the Cleveland State campus starting at 4 p.m. EDT.
The Crimson Tide starts the Super Six Team Finals on the vault before going to its first bye. From there UA will progress to the uneven bars and balance beam before going to its second bye. Alabama finishes the night on the floor exercise. The Tide will face UCLA, Utah, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Michigan for the 2011 national title.
While the team champion will be crowned tonight, individual titles go up for grabs on Sunday. To advance to individual event finals, gymnasts had to finish in the top four of their semi-final session on Friday.
Sophomore Ashley Sledge, senior Kayla Hoffman, junior Geralen Stack-Eaton and sophomore Marissa Gutierrez will be in the running on the vault while Hoffman and freshman Kim Jacob will compete for the balance beam title. Stack-Eaton and freshman Sarah DeMeo will go for gold on the uneven bars while Stack-Eaton will be in the mix on the floor exercise.
All the gymnasts competing in individual finals earned first team All-American honors on those events. Hoffman, Stack-Eaton and Jacob also earned first team All-American honors in the all-around after finishing second and third respectively on Friday. Freshman Diandra Milliner earned second team All-American on the balance beam after finishing fifth in the Tide's semifinal session on Friday.
All together, seven UA gymnasts earned 13 All-American honors, led by four from Stack-Eaton which brings her career total to eight. Hoffman earned three this season, moving her career total to five. Jacob earned a pair of honors while Gutierrez, Sledge, DeMeo and Milliner all earned one each.
The individual finals get underway at 1 p.m. EDT.
Players Mentioned
