NCAA Championships time for Lauzon, Williams, and Men's Gymnastics

Mya Lauzon and/or Maddie Williams could earn Cal Women's Gymnastics' second (and/or third) individual NCAA championship tonight at 6 PM PT on ESPN2

While the Cal revenue sports are inducing stress, Cal Gymnastics will aim to make us proud at the NCAA Championships in the next few days.

Sure, it was heartbreaking that Cal Women’s Gymnastics did not advance to today’s NCAA Championship semifinal in Fort Worth, Texas as a team. Due to some questionable scoring (especially early in the Alabama Regional Final during the first rotation when Cal was on floor exercise), Cal was ultimately edged by host Alabama for that second and final berth in the NCAA Championships despite a valiant effort by the team under pressure to drop the scores from the two major mistakes.

Nonetheless, the season is not yet over for seniors Mya Lauzon and Maddie Williams. Both of these Golden Bears greats will get the chance to win the NCAA Championship as individuals tonight. They can join a very exclusive group of one, Maya Bordas for the uneven bars in 2021, as the national champion produced by Cal Women’s Gymnastics.

Mya Lauzon, the ACC Gymnast of the Year, will compete in both the balance beam and the floor exercise. Lauzon earned 9.95 on both of those apparatuses at the Tuscaloosa Regional Final. Maddie Williams will compete on the uneven bars. Williams got two perfect 10s for her Regional Final routine but got a score of 9.95 (meaning that two judges scored it as a 9.9). Both Cal Bears will rotate with the UCLA Bruins, head-coached by their former Cal assistant coach Janelle McDonald. After the UCLA Bruins competed on that apparatus, it will be the turn for the Cal Bears.

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UCLA, as the 3rd seed in the second semifinal, will start on the Floor, then Vault, Bars, and Beam.

The top scores today for each apparatus and the all-around will earn the individual NCAA titles. The NCAA team title will be decided on Saturday from the “Four on the Floor” - the top two teams to advance out of each of the two semifinals.

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Especially for the individual titles of each apparatus, there were often ties and co-champions. It would be fantastic for these two Golden Bears greats to end their remarkable collegiate careers with memorable performances and fancy hardware!

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Even with an interim head coach, No.9 Cal Men’s Gymnastics will return to another NCAA Championship, this time in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Cal men will compete on Friday (qualifying rounds) for spots in Saturday’s final.

To advance, the team would need to finish in the top three of their session. More likely, Cal should have individual qualifiers who are the top three all-around and apparatus scores not on the advancing teams.

No.9 Cal will be in Friday’s session I (on ESPN+, 10 AM PT) with No.1 Oklahoma, No.4 Nebraska, No.5 Penn State, No.8 Air Force, and No.12 William & Mary. Golden Bears will need to upset two teams to make Saturday’s final (ESPN2 at 3:30 PM PT) as a team.

At the MPSF Championship two weeks ago, redshirt junior Jasper Smith-Gordon became Cal’s first MPSF champion since 2018 when he earned a 14.250 in vault.

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Men’s Gymnastics scoring involves awarding more points for higher difficulty routines unlike women’s gymnastics that are more about perfection of lesser routines that meet a certain starting value (no bonus points for eMjae Frazier for her extra half of a rotation on her vault, for example). Upsets are less likely to happen in NCAA men’s gymnastics.

Nonetheless, anything can happen in a competition.

GO BEARS!