Georgia entered Saturday’s SEC gymnastics championships with momentum, but struggled to keep it.
After concluding the regular season with their second-highest score in a victory over No. 21 North Carolina State — one with nine scores of 9.9 or better – the No. 5 Bulldogs perhaps suffered from a nearly two-week layoff before the seven-team championships at Gwinnett Arena.
Dogs coach Jay Clark blamed too many small errors for his team’s third-place finish for a third consecutive time in the conference championships, this year behind No. 1 Florida and No. 3 Alabama.
The Dogs finished with 196.575 points, behind the Gators (197.15) and the Crimson Tide (196.775), the only teams they lost to in finishing 4-2 in conference play. No. 8 LSU was fourth (196.425), No. 24 Kentucky fifth (194.35), No. 10 Arkansas sixth (194.175) and No. 15 Auburn seventh (194.1) in front of a crowd of 7,170.
“We were nervous and made little mistakes throughout — no big errors, just enough small ones to let a great opportunity slip away,” Clark said. “We nickel-and-dimed ourselves all meet.”
Particularly challenging, the Dogs began on the vault, in which they came in ranked ninth nationally, their lowest ranking.
“We started out nervous,” Clark added, “and we never really snapped out of it.”
Kat Ding, two-time defending conference champion and defending national champion on bars, had the Dogs’ highest individual finish of second, scoring Georgia’s only 9.9. Shayla Worley’s third-place 9.85 on beam was Georgia’s only other top-five finish.
Ding wound up eighth in the all-around at 39.325, behind winner Kytra Hunter of Florida (39.625), Arkansas’ Jaime Pisani (39.5) and LSU’s Rheagan Courville (39.45). Ding was a team-best seventh on floor exercise and teammate Noel Couch was ninth on vault, both at 9.875.
Ding was frustrated Georgia failed to win a 17th conference crown, the total of Florida’s now second-most eight, Alabama’s seven and LSU’s one.
“Tonight just wasn’t clicking,” she said. “It was more of a mental toughness we lacked. We’ve had that most of the season, but just had a little slip.”
The all-around title was the fifth this season for Florida’s Hunter, propelled by a career-high 9.975 on vault, the meet’s highest score. Four of six Gators scored 9.9 or better on vault.
“Our athletes came back from a shaky start and were lights out on vault,” Florida coach Rhonda Faehn said.
Alabama beat Florida in the regular season, but couldn’t when it mattered more in Gwinnett, the site of next month’s national championships.
“Florida showed why they’re ranked No. 1 in the country,” Tide coach Sarah Patterson said. “They handled the pressure well today.”
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