Saturday night in Auburn, Alabama, coach Brett Nelligan and his squad of GymTerps got a taste of big time SEC gymnastics at the NCAA Regional. The Terps looked it in the eye, handled the situation spectacularly and showed that they are a program on the rise.
The six team meet featured two of the nation’s top eight teams, fifth ranked Alabama and the eighth ranked host school, Auburn. Big Ten foes Iowa and Minnesota together with erstwhile EAGL opponent George Washington completed the field.
Maryland was the fifth seeded team behind the two SEC squads and both their B1G rivals but ahead of GW. The Terps had history this year with all three of these squads. They had beaten Minnesota in their first B1G dual meet but finished behind them at the Big Ten Championship. They competed well against Iowa but lost the dual in Iowa City and also finished behind them at the Big Ten Championship. They’s faced GW twice losing to them in the season’s first meet and tying them in a quad meet later in the year.
Someone asked me in advance of my trip to Alabama how I thought the Terps would fare. I answered that they certainly should finish fifth, that fourth would be an excellent result and third would be spectacular. Although the night didn’t start that way, they got spectacular.
A quick primer for those unfamiliar with gymnastics. Women compete on four events or apparatuses. These are vault, bars, beam and floor. Six gymnasts compete in each event from each team. Each gymnast receives a score and the team score for an event consists of the total of the five highest scores from the six competitors. The four event scores are added together to get the team’s overall score for the meet.
Two last points: First, most competitions during the season are head to head or “dual” meets. Some meets have three teams and some have four. The NCAA Tournament regional has six. This means that each team gets two bye rotations during the meet.
Second, in a typical home meet, the home team starts with the vault and then moves sequentially through the bars and beam before finishing on the floor.
I mention this latter fact because this is the rotation that Maryland drew in Auburn. Thus, excepting the two byes, the flow of competition was like a home meet though the crowd was far from it.
The very first competitor of the night for Maryland, Karen Tang, fell on her vault. Early in the season this might have discombobulated the entire team. No longer. The remaining five competitors, Leah Slobodin, Dominiquea Trotter, Abbie Epperson, Kathy Tang and Shannon Skochko responded well. While Maryland’s score of 48.950 was far from a season best, it represented a strong recovery.
The Terps had their first bye in the second rotation before moving to bars where they scored 48.725 – slightly below their season average. They moved immediately to the balance beam where they registered a 48.675 which is a solid score for them.
Maryland had a bye in the fifth rotation but GW didn’t. When that rotation ended, the Terps knew exactly the team score they needed on the floor exercise to finish ahead of the Colonials. Interestingly, Minnesota and Iowa were also within reach though they both competed in that final rotation. Maryland finished with a 48.800 – fourth best of the night but good enough to propel them to a third place NCAA Regional finish for only the third time (1989 and 2001) in school history.
After the meet, I asked Nelligan about the atmosphere and overcoming the shaky start.
“The atmosphere was incredible. With two teams from the state of Alabama, we knew it was going be a great crowd. It was very loud. It was high energy and I thought the team handled it exceptionally well. We started off with an uncharacteristic fall on vault and then proceeded to rip off 23 straight hits. I was proud of the way they settled down after the first one. They absorbed all that crowd rowdiness and just pushed forward.”
I followed that up by asking if he thought being in a normal home rotation helped the team.
“I love that rotation because vault is an event that you can get your jitters out. If you’re jittery and you start on beam or bars, that could be trouble. But when you start on vault, it does feel a little bit like a home meet. It’s funny, when we huddled up on floor, I said to them ‘Let’s make this XFinity south. This is a home meet where we’re ending on floor, let’s pretend this is home for us.’”
We talked about how his team bounced back from some individual struggles. For example, Stephanie Giameo the Terrapins’ anchor and usually their star and most consistent performer on beam, nearly fell and scored unre 9.800 for the only time this season. She came back with a very solid 9.700 on floor. “That was so unusual for her on beam,” Nelligan said. “With sSteph we talk about not just that she doesn’t fall but it’s unusual when she even just wobbles. I think she was determined she was not coming off that beam. I think you how she gripped that beam with every muscle in her body down to her toes. She knew she had to come back and help us on floor and she stepped up and did a great job. That was one of those routines that helped us move ahead of Minnesota at the end.
Lastly, we talked about the freshmen, “Dominiquea Trotter and Abbie Epperson were great but I also want to include in that group Leah Slobodin. Even though she’s a sophomore this is her first year of competition. All three of those kids to get in an environment like this and not only compete but be exceptional, will set us for the future. They’ll pass that down to next year’s freshmen and we can come back next year to regionals and be even stronger.
Michael
Even though they didn’t move on, they made a splash and hopefully this will be a launching point to an even better finish next season.
Here’s to the Gym Terps!
· 11/12/2019