(GYM) Gator Gym Quad Meet at Raleigh, NC 7pm ACC+

No. 2 Florida gymnastics closes regular-season action Friday with a road quad meet at No. 26 North Carolina State with Rutgers and Pennsylvania.

It is the final meet before postseason action begins with the 41st Southeastern Conference championship meet, set for Saturday, March 19 at the Legacy Arena.

How to Follow the Gators:
Florida at NC State quad begins at 7 p.m. ET in the James T. Valvano Arena at William Neal Reynolds Coliseum. The meet streams on ACC Network Extra with Christina Chauvenet and Rachel Katz Garland calling the action.

Follow the action on ACC Network Extra or follow the scores.

In the Gators' Last Meet:
The Gators are coming off their SEC regular-season title securing tie at then No. 6 Auburn. The two teams tied at 198.575 – all-time highs for both programs and equals the No. 4 total in NCAA history. The Tigers needed a win to share the 2022 SEC title with UF. It was Florida's fourth-consecutive SEC regular season title and third straight unbeaten league season. The unbeaten streak is the league's longest since Georgia posted a 23-0-1 record from 2006-09. The result was the third regular season tie in UF's 50 seasons (2007: at Georgia; 1997: at Towson State).

Contributing to the big team score at Auburn were two 10.0s by Gator senior Trinity Thomas(vault) and freshman Sloane Blakely (floor exercise). Super Senior Megan Skaggs also found perfection as she earned a 9.95 (maximum value) for her Yurchenko full vault. Florida set its vault team total record (49.725) and its 49.75 on floor exercise stands No. 3 for the program. Five Gators set or matched nine collegiate highs at Auburn.

SEC Specialist Gymnast of the Week Goes to Trinity Thomas
After her national leading sixth 10.0 of 2022 (and 14th of career), Thomas claimed the SEC Specialist Gymnast of the Week honor. It is her fourth SEC Specialist of Week honor for 2022 as she claimed the March 1 SEC Gymnast of the Week honor after setting the nation's season-leading all-around (39.85) versus Oklahoma.

Series History:
NC State: UF leads 30-1
Last meeting: UF won 2021 NCAA Athens Regional (197.70) and NC State was fourth (196.15)
Penn: First meeting
Rutgers: UF leads 3-0
Last meeting: UF won 2022 season opening home quad (197.675) and Rutgers was fourth (192.075).

Rankings:
Florida: No. 2 on the Week 9 Road to Nationals site
NC State: No. 26
Penn: No. 52
Rutgers: No. 44

 

Current Rankings: No. 2 Florida, No. 44 Rutgers and No. 52 Penn at No. 26 N.C. State

Why You Should Clear Space on Your DVR: Florida moved into second place nationally with its unbelievable 198.575 against Auburn last week. The Gators have a little more room to improve than the Sooners and can tie for the top spot with a 198.125 or better performance. N.C. State, meanwhile, has already secured its regionals berth (no play-in meet for the Wolfpack this season, *knock on wood*) but will be looking to put more distance between itself and EAGL rivals Towson and North Carolina ahead of conference championships.

You Can Fast Forward, but not Through This: N.C. State’s bars lineup has scored as low as 47.675 and as high as 49.450 while its beam lineup has been remarkably steady (and ranked 17th nationally); both are worth watching. Penn junior Mccaleigh Marr is an outstanding bars and beam specialist who can realistically challenge the rest of this impressive field for event titles (particularly on beam). Similarly, Rutgers’ senior Belle Huang is an outstanding floor worker, currently ranked 20th.

 

No. 4 Utah at No. 7 LSU 8:30pm
SEC+

Utah and LSU to Cross Conferences and Team Personnel at Friday Showdown

When the Utah gymnastics team sets foot in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Friday evening, it will represent more than a blockbuster matchup of two top teams and a premiere non-conference duel. It will be personal.

“Obviously there will be an emotional component to it,” LSU assistant coach Garrett Griffeth admitted. Griffeth and his wife, LSU volunteer assistant coach Courtney McCool Griffeth, would know; the two spent the past two seasons coaching at Utah.

“We’re invested in the kids on the Utah team,” Griffeth said. “Having coached them for the past few years, we want to see them succeed.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the arena, Myia Hambrick will be on the sidelines as volunteer assistant coach for the Utes. It will be her first time in the PMAC as a Utah staff member, but she’s been there many times before. Hambrick herself was a standout gymnast for LSU from 2015 until 2018.

Hambrick’s approach to returning to Baton Rouge is as methodical as her weekly all-around consistency was during her time in college. If anything, she said, it will be just like any other meet.

“The gymnastics community is relatively small, so almost any meet that you go to, there’s always at least an old teammate of one of the girls there. So it won’t be so different from any other time,” she said.

The small size of the gymnastics community is part of what brought both Hambrick to Utah and the Griffeths to LSU. Utah head coach Tom Farden recalled seeing Hambrick at Utah camps when she was a high school recruit. “I watched her for years at nationals later and would think, ‘Oh geez, what could have been,” he recalled.

One of the summer’s splashiest coaching hires came with the announcement that journeyman coaches Garrett Griffeth and Courtney McCool Griffeth would be leaving Utah for LSU. The Griffeths “loved [their] experience” at Utah, where they were named the WGCA Region 2 Assistant Coaches of the Year in 2020. However, the LSU offer convinced them in large part because of the chance to be closer to home (Griffeth’s extended family is in Georgia, and McCool Griffeth’s is in Florida).

The Griffeths are no strangers to relocating, as they’ve previously coached at Texas Woman’s and Arkansas in addition to their most recent stops. They’ve gotten acquainted with the process of moving and settling in with a new team. “We say the same thing every time: It takes about a year for you to feel settled,” Griffeth said. “You’ve got to have time to get to know the athletes and athletes need time to build trust in you.”

However, as the season has progressed, the Griffeths have gotten into a rhythm with the team, coaching LSU to a current seventh-place ranking and a vault lineup that rounds out the top three in the country.

“Getting into competitions, you kind of learn how a team competes, and they learn more about the expectations of what you’re looking for,” Griffeth said. “It’s gone really well and smoothly at LSU.”

Though the Griffeths are a brand new addition to a coaching staff used to continuity (vault coach Bob Moore had been with the team for 20 seasons), the team has embraced the Griffeths and their “energy” with open arms. “It’s felt like a new perspective,” said LSU fifth-year gymnast Sami Durante. “They’ve brought so much experience from their other schools, and it feels like that’s helped us a lot.”

“They believe in connecting with our athletes and building trust from that perspective,” observed Gnat. “The transition has been seamless; from shortly after they joined us, I felt like I knew them forever. To watch them embrace the team and everything we do here and how we do it has been amazing. ”Despite the history between the two programs’ coaching staffs, both teams attested to preparing for this meet as they would for any other.

“When we go out there, we’re not just competing against the team in the arena,” Durante said. “We’re competing against everyone in the country.”

That is especially true for the current moment. Utah just matched the highest team total in the country in 2022, but the Utes will enter Friday’s meet ranked fourth with LSU not far behind at No. 7. Utah is capable of rising up to second in the rankings, but that’s the highest it can go. This matchup will surely be an intense battle.

The inherent competitiveness of the meet, however, is offset by a sense of respect both programs have for the other, and a lack of bad blood or awkwardness for the ones who left have with their former team. Farden is proud of the Griffeths and sees their departure as a testament to Utah’s success in training coaches, and he wishes them nothing but the best at LSU.

Regarding Utah, Griffeth said he and McCool Griffeth “respect what they’re doing, and we know that they’re putting together a great program. We know they’re going to be great for a very long time, so we certainly expect to see them often here in the near future.” They haven’t seen the Utah team since they left Salt Lake City this summer, and they’re looking forward to it.

As someone familiar with the environment of the PMAC, Hambrick is also excited for the production element of the evening. “Obviously I’ve never done it as an away competitor, but it’s a pretty exciting environment where they get a ton of fans. Even if you are not for the home team, the environment there is really exciting, and it’s a lot easier to compete at your best whenever there’s a lot of excitement.”

Why You Should Cancel Plans for It: In one of the season’s most highly anticipated matchups, Pac-12 co-champion Utah will head down to SEC country to take on powerhouse LSU. The Tigers will be hungry for a win after an upset loss to Kentucky at home last weekend and will have to fend off the Utes who just matched the highest team total in the NCAA this season in their last meet.

What We’re Watching: LSU will have little room for error, with Haleight Bryant and Kiya Johnson both needing to be healthy and in top form. That duo may need a few 10s for the Tigers to fend off a possible 10 barrage from the Utes, who now have had Maile O’Keefe, Grace McCallum, Cristal Isa and Sage Thompson all hit perfection this season.

What Else You Should Know Before Tuning In: This meet will be a reunion of sorts, with each program’s assistant coaches having ties to the opposing team. Utah volunteer assistant coach Myia Hambrick was an All-American gymnast at LSU while Tiger assistant coaches Courtney McCool Griffeth and Garrett Griffeth were assistants for the Utes last season.

 

No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 21 Boise State at No. 15 Arizona State

Video
Live Blog
Live Scoring

Why You Should Make Time to Tune in: In an all-top 25 matchup, Pac-12 co-champion Arizona State will host MRGC challenger Boise State and newly minted top team in the country Oklahoma. The Sooners will be trying to maintain their top ranking and fend off the Broncos and Sun Devils who are hitting their strides at the right time of the season.

Need More Proof? Sooner Jordan Bowers scored no lower than 9.950 in five routines over two meets last weekend while earning the first perfect 10 of her career on vault. Speaking of perfection, Bronco Emily Muhlenhaupt came ever-close again on bars last weekend and will be pushing to improve on her 9.975 career high once again. Jada Mangahas has been an underrated Sun Devil all year long, who’s now consistently going 9.9 or higher on floor to give Arizona State a much-needed scoring boost.

 

Michigan State at Kentucky 7:00pm
SEC+

 

1 rotation down
Florida FX 49.500
NC State VT 48.575
Rutgers UB 48.775
Penn BM 47.775

Baumann 9.875
Clapper 9.750
Richards 9..850
Skaggs 9.900
Wong 9.975
Reed 9.00

 

Almost full house. Orange and blue dominated colors by far. Crowd in stands mostly members of Gator Nation cheering them on.

 

Skaggs leads off on Vault.

 

Schoenherr sticks landing!

 

Skaggs 9.850

 

Schoenherr 9.975

 

Wong 9.975

 

Reed 9.850

 

Sloane 9.900

 

The Trinity 9.90
Vault 49.600

 

Gators 99.100 after two rotations!

 

Leanne Wong 9.975 on both events 19.950 after two.
She's hitting her stride just in time for SECs and post-season

 

Sloane leads off on Bars

 

9.825

 

Riley 9.825