Vaculik and Morgan lead women’s gymnastics to NCAA Championships

April 7, 2014, 12:41 a.m.

The No. 10 Stanford women’s gymnastics team used a season-best push at the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional on Saturday to finish in second place in a six-team field and advance to the NCAA Championships for the 14th time in program history and for the seventh time in the last eight years.

Redshirt junior Kristina Vaculik (above)
Redshirt junior Kristina Vaculik (above) set a personal record in the bars event at the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional, scoring 9.950 to anchor the Card’s second-place team performance. (FRANK CHEN/The Stanford Daily)

With the top two teams from the regional advancing, Stanford tied a season high with its score of 197.275 and finished behind just first-place LSU, which tied the best score in the NCAA this year with 198.375.

“It was an outstanding team effort today,” said head coach Kristen Smyth to GoStanford.com. “The team showed grit, they fought for everything and they did a great job of covering each other when they needed to. We are definitely peaking at the right time.”

Senior Kristina Vaculik led the way with a third-place finish in the all-around with a 39.475 to accompany a career-high 9.950 on the bars to tie for the regional title with junior Samantha Shapiro.

Senior Shona Morgan also had a fantastic day, leading off in the vault, beam and floor and emerging with a pair of third-place finishes in the first two while finishing in a tie for ninth place in the floor. Morgan, who was competing in her fourth career NCAA Regional, rounded off a sweep of the top three in bars for the Cardinal with a 9.900 to equal her personal best.

The Cardinal will next compete in the NCAA Championships in Alabama starting on April 18.

Do-Hyoung Park '16, M.S. '17 is the Minnesota Twins beat reporter at MLB.com, having somehow ensured that his endless hours sunk into The Daily became a shockingly viable career. He was previously the Chief Operating Officer and Business Manager at The Stanford Daily for FY17-18. He also covered Stanford football and baseball for five seasons as a student and served two terms as sports editor and four terms on the copy desk. He was also a color commentator for KZSU 90.1 FM's football broadcast team for the 2015-16 Rose Bowl season.

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