Last year Georgia’s gymnastics team was just happy to make the Super Six after a three-year absence. This time, the Bulldogs want more.
Georgia advanced to Saturday’s NCAA Super Six competition by scoring a 197.3 in Friday’s preliminary round. Oklahoma won the afternoon session with a 197.5 to advance while LSU also advanced with a 197.1.
Stanford (196.6), Michigan (196.425) and Illinois (195.8) failed to make the cut.
The Super Six will include the top three teams from the evening session, in which Alabama and Florida tied with 197.65 and Nebraska also advanced with a 197.1. Failing to make the cut were Utah (197.025), UCLA (197.0) and Penn State (194.825).
The finals start at 7 p.m. and will be shown on ESPN3.
Georgia finished the regular season ranked sixth nationally, so another sixth-place finish would seem respectable, but the Bulldogs believe they can out-perform that ranking Saturday.
“We are on a mission,” Georgia’s Lindsey Cheek said. “We have prepared all year, and the last couple of weeks our confidence has gotten even higher. We aren’t going to give up until the last event is over.”
The Bulldogs won five titles in a row from 2005-09, the last of which marked the final year of coach Suzanne Yoculan’s career.
The program struggled to retain that high standard under Yoculan’s replacement, Jay Clark, who is now an assistant at LSU. However, the Bulldogs appear to be on the rise again under second-year coach Danna Durante.
“We are mentally prepared and ready for this,” Georgia’s Brandie Jay said. “We didn’t have our best bars set today, but we kept fighting and didn’t give up, and that is what we are going to do tomorrow.”
Durante said the key to Friday’s meet was establishing the lineups several weeks ago.
“We have been shifting the lineups all season, and we just decided we would stick with these,” she said. “That helped them relax and let them focus on what they needed to and what their roles were.”
The change appeared to be a smart one as Georgia showed a lot of confidence from the beginning.
Georgia started with a favorable rotation of opening on the vault, where the Bulldogs recorded a 49.35, led by Jay’s 9.95 and Cheek’s 9.9.
Georgia spent 10 consecutive weeks ranked No. 1 on the uneven bars and set an SEC Championship record with a 49.7 in this same building several weeks ago.
Unfortunately, Georgia couldn’t replicate that same kind of magical performance Friday, scoring only 49.3 on the event with Georgia failing to deliver the big scores they normally do. The high mark was a 9.925 from Cheek.
The lackluster rotation left Georgia in third at the halfway mark with a 98.65 behind Oklahoma (98.775) and LSU (98.7).
However, Georgia still had a comfortable lead on the other teams as Stanford struggled to a 98.05, Michigan had to count a fall on the balance beam and had a 97.675 and Illinois was sixth with a 97.525.
Georgia didn’t let the subpar performance on the uneven bars affect them on the balance beam as they scored a 49.2 on the event. The mark was the best for the team since the Bulldogs earned 49.3 at Utah on March 15.
Mary Beth Box and Cheek both scored 9.9s to lead the team.
While Box’s effort was a career high, Cheek’s routine in particular was big since it came after Kiera Brown fell. Rather than letting the mistake lead to a tumble in scores overall, Cheek competed with confidence and put the Gym Dogs right back on track.
Kaylan Earls finished off the rotation with a 9.8, prompting Georgia’s large group of fans in attendance to start chants of “UGA, UGA.”
Georgia capped off its strong performance on floor where Hires tied her career high with a 9.9 to help them team score 49.45.
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