Cal Bears earns spot in NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship
The Bears placed 2nd in the NCAA Morgantown Regional with a season second best score of 197.750
 |
Cal vs. Michigan vs. UCLA vs. Ohio State
Cal Gymnastics @CalWGym
Same lineups, same mindset, new meet. The #BearsOnBars will kick off the NCAA Regional Final at 4pm PST. https://t.co/RnPgm69se0
6:28 PM EDT: This tentative lineup is decided before the warm-ups which the Bears just officially concluded.
6:38 PM EDT: The Bears have returned to the floor. There are some dancing on the sideline as the team appears fairly loose before this big meet.
UCLA, just like Michigan did, was able to recover after a mistake on the first routine.
The two UC siblings are tied at the end of rotation 1. Reminder, UCLA has been rather problematic this year on the balance beam. They will conclude this meet there.
On the other hand, Cal Bears started on their best apparatus but had a good but not great rotation - the Bears earned a 49.600 on the bars yesterday.
Dropping the 9.8, the Bears have matched their 3rd best beam score in history.
Again, with this meet having the potential to be the season-ending one, I was expecting a slightly better score (an additional 9.9+ to drop a 9.85), but the Golden Bears certainly did enough to be in control for that 2nd place. Bears also edged their beam score from yesterday by 0.050.
Golden Bears go 6 for 6 on their vaults and has clinched at least a 2nd place at this meet!
UCLA struggled with their first two beam routines and took any drama out of this final rotation (which is perfectly fine by me)!
Needing a great vault rotation to secure a spot in the Elite 8, the Golden Bears came through with a season-high on the vault.
Co-head coach Justin Howell told me that he thought Natalie just looked great in the warm-up and opted for the swap of her for Maya Bordas for the second day in a row.
The Bears are back in the NCAA Semifinal for the first time since 2018 when the current seniors were freshmen. That was the last year with the semifinal being the top-12 teams rather than the top-8 like this year.
A full recap will be posted tomorrow!
This is one sport I can't watch, men's or women's. After blowing out each knee and an ankle, the only thing I see when they make landings ~ often from twisted or flipped positions ~ is a blown knee on the landing. So I'm always shielding my eyes or groaning, just best that I don't watch it.