The situation was simple for the Alabama gymnastics team. Hit their final two routines on the balance beam and they would win a second consecutive national championship. Anything less meant the title would fall to SEC-rival Florida.
Unwilling to set Gwinnett Arena awash in a celebratory sea of orange and blue, Alabama’s senior duo of Geralen Stack-Eaton and Ashley Priess each scored a 9.9, enabling the Crimson Tide to win the NCAA gymnastics championship for the sixth time.
Alabama finished with 197.850 points, edging Florida’s 197.775 and UCLA’s 197.750. Florida’s second-place score would have been good enough to win the past two national championships.
The national championships conclude Sunday, with the individual event finals at 1 p.m.
It wasn’t the first time that Stack-Eaton and Priess had been backed into a similar corner. It had happened in their freshman season in a meet at Auburn.
“So we said a prayer and made a pact that we were going to do this,” Priess said.
Florida led by .025 points entering the last event Saturday. The Gators had the floor exercise and Alabama had the beam.
“I knew where we were going into the event, and I knew what they were capable of on the floor,” Alabama coach Sarah Patterson said. “It wasn’t until the very end that I realized our scores had matched up with theirs pretty well, and it was going to come down that last routine.”
Three competitors into the final rotation, the teams were dead even. But when Bama’s Sarah DeMeo staggered with a 9.775 on the beam, the onus was on the final two girls to produce. When they delivered, the partisan Alabama crowd responded with a deafening roar.
“There really are no words to describe that feeling, but a happy ending is probably the best way we can,” Priess said.
It’s the first time Alabama has won back-to-back championship, which caused Patterson to give credit to Suzanne Yoculan, her former rival at Georgia, for winning five straight.
“It’s a lot harder the second time,” Patterson said. “We asked our girls, are you satisfied or are you hungry? You can’t be both.”
She got her answer midway in the season. The turning point, she said, came with the regular-season victory over Florida in Tuscaloosa.
“When we took that meet, we were able to set the tone for the rest of the year,” Patterson said.
Alabama went on to finish undefeated in the SEC and finish 11-1, its only loss at then-No. 2 Oklahoma. The Tide was second to Florida at the SEC Championships, won their regional meet in Seattle and defeated Florida in the NCAA semifinal Friday. They saved their best for the final, scoring a season-best 197.85.
Among those in the crowd was Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, the projected No. 1 pick in Thursday’s NFL draft. Luck was there to watch his girlfriend, Stanford gymnast Nicole Pechanec. The Cardinal finished fourth.
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