Alabama Ready to Launch into NCAA Gymnastics Tuscaloosa Regional Championships
3/31/2021 5:30:00 PM | Gymnastics
While the regional gets started in Tuscaloosa on Thursday with Eastern Michigan and Maryland vying for a spot in Friday’s second round, the Crimson Tide opens its run with Session I of Round 2 on Friday at 1 p.m. CT
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The Alabama gymnastics team hosts the NCAA Regional Championships in Coleman Coliseum this weekend with the Crimson Tide getting started in Session I of Friday's second round at 1 p.m. CT. It will be Alabama's first competition since winning the SEC Championship on March 20.
Alabama is seeded first in Session I and is joined by No. 10 Arkansas, No. 19 Iowa, and No. 20 Iowa State. The Tide will start on the balance beam, before rotating to the floor exercise and vault and will then finish on the uneven bars. Iowa State will start on the vault, Arkansas on the uneven bars and Iowa on floor exercise.
No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 23 Missouri and the winner of Thursday's No. 31 Eastern Michigan and No. 32 Maryland session will compete in the second semifinal at 7 p.m. CT on Friday. The top-two teams from each of Friday's sessions will compete in the regional final on Saturday, April 3 at 7 p.m. with the top-two teams from the regional final advancing to the national championships. Both sessions on Friday and Saturday's regional final will be streamed live on ESPN3 and the ESPN app.
Tuscaloosa is one of four regional sites, joining Salt Lake City, Utah, Morgantown, W. Va., and Athens, GA. The regional competition was moved to Tuscaloosa during the regular season, originally slated to be hosted by Missouri. This year will mark the 16th time that Alabama has hosted an NCAA gymnastics regional, and the first time since the format changed from one day with one session to three days and four sessions in 2019.
Head Coach Dana Duckworth Said
"We are honored to host regionals, we were very excited to be given the opportunity this year, especially since that's not the way it was initially set up. I go back to a heart of gratitude ... this team has had a heart of gratitude through this entire season and as a staff and as a program, to be able to host regionals is just an awesome opportunity to be in Coleman Coliseum in front of our home crowd and to have the road to nationals go through Tuscaloosa."
NCAA Regionals
- Alabama has competed in the regional round of the NCAA Championships every year since its inception in 1982, outside of last season's hiatus
- The Crimson Tide holds the NCAA record when it comes to regional team titles with 32
- With the cancellation of the 2020 postseason due to COVID-19, this will be just the second time the three-day, four-session format has been used and just the second time that only eight teams, instead of the traditional 12, will advance to the final site, which will be held in Ft. Worth, Texas, April 16-17
- The Tide has an NCAA Regional Champion on its team, as senior Lexi Graber won the all-around and the vault at the meet in 2018
Last Time Out
- On Saturday, March 20, Alabama took home the SEC Championship after its best performance of the season, scoring a 197.875 to take down LSU, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Auburn and Arkansas en route to the title
- The Tide's SEC Championship title was its 10th all time, second under head coach Dana Duckworth and first since 2015
- Luisa Blanco won the all-around title with scores of 9.950 on every event, totaling a 39.800
- Blanco's win marked her fifth straight all-around title, and made her the first Alabama gymnast to win the all-around at the SEC Championships since Ashley Priess in 2010
- Priess and Blanco both won the SEC all-around title as sophomores, a little over a decade apart
- Blanco also picked up SEC individual titles on vault, uneven bars and the balance beam and finished second on the floor exercise
- Shania Adams and Makarri Doggette also matched Blanco's 9.950 on the uneven bars to win individual SEC titles on the event
- Lexi Graber scored a 9.950 on balance beam to win the event, making it her second SEC title on balance beam after winning the event in 2019, the last time the SEC Championships were held
- The Tide's 49.550 on vault was its highest since February 21, 2014
- The Tide had 11 scores of 9.9-or-better at the Championships - Graber (9.900), Quinn (9.925), Olsen (9.925) and Blanco (9.950) on the vault, Adams (9.950), Doggette (9.950) and Blanco (9.950) on the uneven bars, Graber (9.950) and Blanco (9.950) on the balance beam and Blanco (9.950) and Graber (9.950) on floor exercise
Inside the Score Sheet
- Luisa Blanco has not scored below a 9.875 on balance beam this season, scoring a 9.925-or-better in six out of her eight routines
- Lexi Graber has scored a 9.9-or-better in 15 of her last 16 floor routines
- Shania Adams has competed in the all-around in all but two meets to this point in her rookie season, with her performance in the season-opener marking the first time a Crimson Tide freshman has competed in all four events in their first meet since Katie Bailey in 2014
- Adams also leads the Tide in routines competed this season with 34
- Blanco is second in routines competed this season with 31 while Graber is third with 28
- Blanco leads the Tide with 18 event titles so far this season, with six on the balance beam, five in the all-around, three each on the vault and uneven bars and one on floor exercise
- Makarri Doggette has competed in the Tide's uneven bars and balance beam lineups every meet thus far this season and has also competed twice on floor exercise
Up Next
- The Regional Finals will take place Saturday, April 3 at 7 p.m., with the top two teams from each of Friday's semifinals advancing to the final
- The top two-teams from Saturday will advance to the NCAA National Championships in Fort Worth, Texas, on April 16-17
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Players Mentioned
