Berkeley is Bear Territory: Cal Women's Gymnastics repeats as Regional Champs
Golden Bears set a new postseason program history high of 198.275 to advance to the NCAA Championships in Fort Worth, TX (April 18/20)
California Golden Bears are one step closer to their ultimate goal of the 2024 season, a berth in that NCAA Championship Final session that they came so agonizingly close to last year.
On Sunday, Cal took a major step when they won a NCAA Regional for the second consecutive year. This one is even sweeter than last year as it comes at home at Haas Pavilion in front of their home fans.
While the Cal Women’s Gymnastics program has been steadily making history every year for the past decade, they achieved at least two more notable feats in this meet. Cal Bears set a new program-high postseason team score of 198.275. Junior Mya Lauzon earned the first postseason “perfect 10” in program history when she performed a flawless vault.
Cal cruised to an easy NCAA Regional win in “Bear Territory”!
Cal’s score of 198.275 was a comfortable distance from the second-place score of 197.575 by Stanford. The two Bay Area frenemies will head to NCAA Semifinal Session 1 on April 18th against LSU and Arkansas, where the top two teams will advance to the “Four on the Floor” NCAA Championship Final session on April 20th. No.2 LSU and No.3 Cal are the two clear favorites to advance, but their margins for errors get smaller with each postseason meet deeper into the playoff runs.
"These meets are tight. Everybody is good," Cal co-head coach Justin Howell said. "Our overarching goal all year long has been to compete on the final night of the national championship. But we put that aside and didn't talk about it – we focused on our own gymnastics and being at our best. I'm incredibly excited and grateful to have the opportunity to compete for a national championship."
The NCAA Semifinal sessions are when the individual NCAA Championships are awarded. Each of the four apparatuses and the all-around champion will be announced by the end of the second semifinal session on April 18th.
While the postseason scores are tougher to earn due to the two extra judges who are looking for deductions, Cal junior Mya Lauzon showed that a perfect score is not impossible. At least three of the four judges must have deemed her vault to be flawless for Lauzon to earn Cal’s first postseason “perfect 10”. Each gymnast’s score is the average of the second and third best scores from the four judges.
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Mya Lauzon was the all-around regional champion with a score of 39.750. All four Cal all-around gymnasts had strong meets with Maddie Williams and Ella Cesario tying for 3rd with 39.600 and eMjae Williams 6th with a score a hair behind at 39.575.
Similar to Friday’s meet, Cal started a little bit slow by their lofty standard. Cal Bears started Sunday’s regional final on the balance beam. They earned a 49.400 to tie for the lead at the end of the first rotation. Mya Lauzon led the team with a 9.950; before Sunday, Lauzon’s two “perfect 10’s” this season had come from the beam. For this Cal squad, any rotation score under 49.500 (which is equal to five scores of 9.9) is probably a little bit disappointing.
Moving on to floor exercise, Cal Bears quickly took command of the meet by tying a program record with a team score of 49.700. All six Cal Bears earned 9.9 or better with eMjae Frazier earning two 10’s from two judges for her team-high score of 9.975. Cal did make a slight lineup change from recent meets by replacing Jordan Kane with Andi Li. Li’s very good score of 9.9 was the one that was dropped.
After a slow vault rotation on Friday when they started on this apparatus, Cal Bears did much better this time around. eMjae Frazier earned a 9.9 for her Yurchenko double before Lauzon got her 10.0. Cal earned a 49.500 as a team.
Closing the meet on the uneven bars, Cal got three 9.950 from Andi Li, Gabby Perea, and Maddie Williams for a total of 49.675. Cal Bears hit on all 24 routines in this regional final.
Elsewhere, No.6 Denver did things the hard way for the first three rotations. The Pioneers had an early major mistake in each of those rotation before being able to drop the low scores. Denver had a slim lead for second place going into the final rotation before they were beaten by Stanford on floor, led by their 5th-year senior Chloe Widner who earned a 10.0 on the floor to close out the meet. Stanford edges Denver 197.575 to 197.450. Arizona State had a decent meet with a 196.750 to close out their season.
Sunday’s return to breaking the 198 scoring barrier was a major mental breakthrough for the Cal Bears after a relatively subpar Pac-12 Championships two meets ago when the Pac-12 Regular Season champion Cal placed 3rd with a 197.325 behind Pac-12 Championship champion Utah and UCLA.
"We took a little look in the mirror after Pac-12s and had a really productive team meeting," Howell said. "We got some really good feedback from the team and tried to implement it into our training. We wanted to figure out what was different at Pac-12s and make sure it didn't happen again."
The NCAA Championships are April 18-20 at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. The NCAA semifinals on April 18th will be aired on ESPN2. The NCAA final on April 20th will air on ABC.
No.1 Oklahoma leads the other half of the bracket where the final four are the ones expected by seed: No. 4 Florida, No.5 Utah, and No.8 Alabama. On Cal’s half of the bracket, No.3 Cal will face No.2 LSU, No.12 Arkansas, and the unseeded Stanford.
Looking ahead to the NCAA Championships, Cal Bears probably just need a score of 198 in the NCAA semifinal to advance to the final session. They will then need at least a 198.4+ to potentially unseat Oklahoma. Cal Bears achieved a program-best record team score of 198.550 about a month ago. By the way, the other regional champions scored 198.400 (Oklahoma), 198.25 (LSU), and 198.325 (Florida), to put Cal’s 198.275 in perspective.
The dream of making it to that final session is very much attainable. If a couple of things do go in Cal’s direction, a potential first NCAA team championship is not impossible. One thing is for sure, it will be an exciting NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championships for the California Golden Bears in two weeks!
Friday Recap:
Bay area rival Cal and Stanford advanced out of Friday’s NCAA Second Round. Host Cal Bears had the session’s top score with 197.800 while Stanford pulled off a mild upset over the seeded Auburn to take second place.
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Bears took on Auburn, Stanford, and Southern Utah on Friday night. South Utah had defeated San Jose State on Thursday night in a dual meet, also at Haas, to earn their spot. In the earlier session on Friday, Denver advanced alongside a surprising Arizona State who edged out UCLA for the second spot. Pac-12 foe Washington was the fourth team in that quad meet.
Cal started a bit slowly on vault. Bears landed all of their vaults but took some tiny hops to earn more 9.8 than 9.9. After one rotation, Cal is a close third with a 49.275 led by Mya Lauzon's 9.9.
Cal made a move into the advancing position in rotation two on Friday. Bears are one of the best squads on the uneven bars - the apparatus that a few years ago created the viral moment of Emi Watterson earning a perfect 10 while wearing a mask and the program's first NCAA individual champion in Maya Bordas that Cal opted to include it in the new school advertisement this season, starring eMjae Frazier. Seniors Andi Li and Gabby Perea earned 9.95 and 9.9 to sandwich around Frazier's 9.925. Cal earned a 49.475 (still nowhere as great as what they could achieve, score-wise) to take second place at the halfway point.
An uncharacteristic major mistake struck the Bears in the second routine of the third rotation. Unfazed, the rest of the Cal Bears landed clutch scores on the balance beam to allow the 9.375 from the fall to be dropped. Ella Cesario, eMjae Frazier, and Mya Lauzon earned 9.9, 9.9, and 9.95 to lead the way. The 49.475 on beam allowed Cal to take control of the meet. Cal might not have been aware of this at the time, but Auburn had a rough rotation on the bars with their first gymnast injured and unable to complete her routine. They had to count multiple 9.7 scores for the second consecutive rotation to fall to a distant third.
The final floor exercise rotation was a fun confirmation of how good this Cal team is in 2024. Five of the six routines earned at least a 9.9 with a strong argument that one can make that Mya Lauzon’s 9.875 should have been scored higher. Cal used the 49.575 from floor to finish 1st in the quad meet with a final team score of 197.80. It was not above 198 but the Bears also did not need that kind of score…yet.
Stanford took second with a solid 197.60. Auburn was 3rd at 196.80 while Southern Utah was 4th at 196.475. The Bay Area rivals and future ACC conference-mates, Cal and Stanford, would advance to Sunday’s regional final.
ROLL ON YOU BEARS!
I've been following Cal W Gym for a distance for only about 5 years and went to my first meet last year, and the last Tri-Meet this year. I unfortunately couldn't attend the regionals but watched via ESPN+
What an amazing team, with spirit, heart, athleticism and talent.
Amazing perfect 10 for Mya!
When our vault scores were higher than the other 3 teams scores on the other apparatuses (apparati?) I was pretty relaxed. This is such a fun team to follow let’s hope the train keeps rolling in two weeks