Cal W. Gymnastics advances to NCAA Championship Final (Saturday, 1 PM PT) for the first time
Cal Men's Gymnastics will also be seeking to advance the entire team to tomorrow's NCAA Men's Final
Although Cal Women’s Gymnastics had believed in themselves and their track record all season long supported that belief, it was nonetheless a cathartic moment on the sideline at Dickies Arena on Thursday afternoon when the California Golden Bears realized that they had achieved their season-long goal: advancing to the NCAA Championship Final AKA “Four on the Floor”.
https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1781093922975969719
There is no better reminder of how making it to the final session as one of the last four teams standing is no small feat even for a squad that has been ranked in the top-3 for the bulk of the season than what happened in the evening session on Thursday. No.1 Oklahoma, undefeated in 2024 including in two meets directly over the Cal Bears and two-time defending champions, had a bunch of mistakes and were eliminated in the second semifinal session.
Yes, Cal’s shot at a first team national championship in program history just went from hopeful to very realistic. It will be a wide-open meet on Saturday (12:30 PM PT Pre-show, 1 PM PT competition on ABC) among No.2 LSU, No.3 Cal, No.4 Florida, and No.5 Utah.
https://twitter.com/CalWGym/status/1781094013157670968
Check out the quick highlight from the NCAA semifinal below, when Cal scored 197.7125 to earn one of the two berths in the NCAA Championship Final. It is perhaps even sweeter (maybe more for Cal fans than the team) that Cal eliminated rival Stanford in the process.
I will have a bit more of a recap of this semifinal meet tomorrow morning, including the clutch routines where the Bears picked up their teammates as Cal did have two major mistakes that were dropped (although they would have advanced anyhow if forced to count one due to how much better the Bears were than Stanford and Arkansas) in my preview of the national championship final.
In the meantime, here is a quick shout-out to No.8 Cal Men’s Gymnastics team who are competing in the Men’s NCAA Championships today from Columbus, Ohio.
https://twitter.com/CalMGym/status/1781302719073935521
Like the case for the women, this is part 1 of a two-part NCAA Championships. Bears need a top-3 finish on Friday to advance as a team for Saturday. If not, chances are still good that Cal Bears will have some individual qualifiers.
The No. 8-ranked Bears will share the gym on Friday with No. 1 Stanford, No. 4 Illinois, No. 5 Nebraska, No. 9 Navy and No. 12 Greenville. To advance as a team to Saturday's final, they will need to place within the top-three squads in their section; individuals can also qualify by placing within the top three of those who have not already qualified with their teams.
Unlike the case for the women at the collegiate level, the men’s gymnastics scoring is uncapped. More difficult skills (more rotations, harder combinations) earn more points. The distance between No.8 Cal and No.1 Stanford or No.2 Oklahoma is basically insurmountable barring their entire team getting food poisoning or having their skills stolen by cartoon aliens like in Space Jam. Nonetheless, these Cal student-athletes are also worthy of your time if you are a gymnastics fan.
Better yet, you do not need a paid ESPN+ account to watch the entire NCAA Championships. It is all streaming for free on NCAA.com via the links in the website below:
https://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule/2024/04/19.
Even the entire men’s NCAA Championship Final will only be streamed rather than broadcast.
More from the Cal Men’s Gymnastics press release:
Cal has several athletes who could make a run at a coveted podium spot this year. Junior Jasper Smith-Gordon is chief among those, posting an average of 14.700 on vault to rank fourth in the nation this season. Senior Aidan Li's school-record 14.700 on pommel horse, which earned him second place at the MPSF Championships, is tied for the NCAA's eighth-best score this year. Similarly, Noah Sano's season high of 14.500 on parallel bars is tied for eighth best in the nation. Nissen-Emery Award finalist Noah Newfeld ranks among the nation's top 25 on both pommel horse and parallel bars, while junior Tyler Shimizu is ranked on pommel horse and floor.
Cal fans may or may not remember that both gymnastics programs were on the chopping block back in 2010 along with Baseball and Lacrosse in addition to the demotion of Rugby as a varsity program. Cal Women’s Gymnastics has become the model Cal Olympic sports program since after the Howells took over. The incremental steady improvements have led to new heights. The more barren collegiate men’s gymnastics landscape, where virtual meets where both squads are competing simultaneously but in their separate places across the country (with no fans) are still happening occasionally, had made it tougher for the men’s program to thrive. Yet by merely existing, Cal maintained a perennial top-10 caliber program in the past two decades.
Anyhow, there are some well-deserved practice facility upgrades for Cal Gymnastics in the near future. There is still some distance to go to eventually catch Oklahoma as Gymnastics U, but Cal is on its way!
GO BEARS!
Heartbreaker for the Cal men today. They were in one of the finals-qualifying spots until the final rotation, during which they slipped to fourth, just one spot shy of going to the finals this weekend. However, they performed well today overall, and it’s been a great season for the Bears.
YARRRRRR!