Nearing the end of its long season, the Stanford women’s gymnastics team heads to West Virginia this weekend to compete against five other teams ranked No. 31 or better in the NCAA Southeast Regional Finals. The No. 6 Cardinal (19-3) are seeded No. 1 in the Morgantown Regional and will face (in order of seeds) Michigan, Southern Utah, North Carolina State, Kent State and West Virginia to contend for a berth at the National Championships in Gainesville, Fla. on April 22-24.
The top two teams from the region will qualify, which Stanford has done the past three years, as well as seven of the past nine. In fact, the Card has appeared in the NCAA Regionals for 27 consecutive seasons, and the team hopes to use its extensive experience and its position as a No. 1 seed to claim a berth at nationals.
However, Stanford was barely able to take the No. 1 regional spot, as the team is tied with Michigan (19-3) at No. 6 in the national rankings and only edged the Wolverines because of an overall score-tiebreaker. Michigan is expected to be the Cardinal’s most difficult competition in the meet, and the two teams have not faced each other so far this season.
Last year, Stanford helped knock Michigan out of the NCAA Championships when the Cardinal finished 0.700 ahead of the Wolverines for second place in the regional competition.
Though the Cardinal has not yet seen any of the other five teams in its region this year, the team remains confident in its preparation. This is primarily because of its success in last weekend’s Pac-10 Championship, in which Stanford finished second behind No. 3 UCLA, 197.350-196.550.
“We fought really well and did a great job covering for one another,” said head coach Kristen Smyth. “But we didn’t hit every routine, and that is keeping us hungry as we head in to this weekend. The girls are fresh, energized and excited—Pac-10s went well, but we want more.”
The team’s rotation will include a bye, followed by floor, vault, another bye, uneven bars and finally the balance beam. This is the exact same sequence of events as last year’s regionals, and the past week has been dedicated to honing the team’s skills and mental readiness.
“We have backed off on the conditioning and done more game-days to really get a grip on the competition,” Smythe said. “We’ve been limiting our numbers and trying to get a good body-feel and plenty of confidence.
Senior captain Carly Janiga also expects the past week of especially strong practices to carry the team through the competition.
“We have had some really great workouts, which bodes well for us because we tend to play like we practice,” she said. “This should eliminate some of our nervous energy, and it makes us excited to go in to competition because we know we have our practices to back us up. That hasn’t always been there, and we’ve had to rely on other factors to give us confidence.”
Smyth expects Janiga, the Pac-10 Floor Champion, to be a crucial contributor to the Card’s success. She is also looking forward to having junior Shelley Alexander return to the rotation after a shoulder injury. Alexander has consistently been one of the team’s top performers on the vault, and Smyth is excited to have her scores back in the mix.
With one more day of practice before the competition begins on Saturday, the team plans to put its final touches on the routines and prepare to put together its best performances of the season, which Smyth says are “yet to come.”
Events will begin at 6 p.m. on Saturday.