Huskies Head To Oklahoma For NCAA Regionals
March 28, 2011
Regional Tournament Website: http://www.soonersports.com/ncaa/2011_wgym_regional.html.
SEATTLE - After posting an impressive score at the Pac-10 Championships on March 19 at UCLA, the Huskies maintained a high enough RQS to earn a top 18 ranking heading into the NCAA Regionals. The No. 17 Huskies had last week off from competition but practiced hard in preparation to leave Wednesday for Norman, Okla.
There are six regional sites across the country and the top two teams at each site will advance to the NCAA Championships in Cleveland, Ohio beginning April 15. Individuals can advance by winning an event at the Regional meet.
Live Coverage
Fans can follow this week’s meet via live stats: http://www.soonersportsmedia.com/gymnastics/2011ncaareg.htm. A free live video feed will also be available at www.ncaa.com. You can also chat live with Mike Bruscas during the meet. The link will be available on www.gohuskies.com prior to the meet.
The 2011 Pac-10 Championship meet was recorded by FSN and tape delayed. There are still several more opportunities to watch the meet. View the complete schedule here: /ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=30200&ATCLID=208234405.
UW’s NCAA History
At the 2010 NCAA Regionals, the Huskies were sent to Utah where they finished fifth with a 193.075. Kristen Linton and Samantha Walior tied for the Regional floor championship there with 9.900’s to earn the automatic bids to the NCAA Championships. A total of 16 individual Regional Championships have been captured by UW student-athletes. As a team, UW has made the NCAA Championships six times, the last in 1998 where they had their best finish, seventh. UW has made an NCAA Regional every year since 1982, winning the meet in 1998.
The Field
The Sooners are No. 5 in the country with a 196.695 and will be the No. 1 seed in their Regional. Utah is the two seed, followed by Washington, New Hampshire, Missouri and North Carolina.
Washington and Oklahoma met once this year already as the Sooners were in Seattle on Jan. 28 and defeated the Huskies 196.175-195.100. The Sooners finish second at the NCAA Championships in 2010 behind UCLA and were second at this year’s Big 12 Championships. Oklahoma leads the country on beam, ranks ninth on vault, 10th on bars and fourth on the floor.
The No. 7 Utes hosted Washington on Feb. 11 winning the dual meet 196.975-195.475. Utah has an RQS of 196.570 and they rank 12th on vault, third on bars, eighth on beam and eighth on floor. At last year’s NCAA Championships they finished sixth.
New Hampshire and Washington met once back in 1994 and UW won the meet. The Wildcats finished second at the East Atlantic Gymnastics (EAGL) Championship with a 195.175. There were fourth last year at the University Park Regional with a 194.800. They are 32nd in the RQS with a 194.830 and 27th on vault and beam, 25th on bars and 30th on floor.
Missouri is just one spot below New Hampshire at 33rd in the RQS with a 194.620. They are 29th on vault, 34th on bars, 33rd on beam and 29th on floor. They were fourth at this year’s Big 12 Championships with a 194.975. They hosted the NCAA South Regional last year, winning the meet with a 196.500 and finished 12th at the NCAA Championships with a 194.600. UW and Missouri have never met in gymnastics.
North Carolina is another team that UW has never faced. The Tar Heels are 36th with a 194.250. They are 43rd on the vault, 37th on the bars, 34th on the beam and 44th on floor. They won this year’s EAGL Championship with a 195.300. At the 2010 NCAA Columbia Regional they were sixth.
Four Huskies Earn All-Pac-10 Honors
Amanda Cline (vault), Ruby Engreitz (bars), Kristen Linton (floor) and Samantha Walior (beam & bars) each earned individual honors on their top event. With five total selections, this is the most for UW since the 2008 season. This is also the first time ever that the Huskies have put a gymnast on each of the four event teams. Cline, Engreitz and Linton each earned second-team honors, the first such honors for each of them. Walior earned first-team on the bars and second-team on the beam. She was named to the All-Pac-10 floor team in 2008 and 2009.
The All Pac-10 team is determined by a combination of 50 percent regional qualifying score (entire season composite) and 50 percent Conference Championships score. The All-Conference first team consists of the top six all-around competitors, plus the top three competitors in each individual event who are not among the all-around honorees. The second team All-Pac-10 consists of the top two all-arounders who were not named to the first team (as all-arounders or in an event), after such the top two gymnasts from each event who were not yet named to the first team or the second team would be selected to the second team.
Huskies Impressive At Pac-10 Championships
After a rocky start on the floor, the Huskies finished the meet with a 49.275 on the beam, their first 49+ score on the event this year to end the meet with a 196.025 and finish third at the Pac-10 Championships at UCLA. Oregon State won the meet with a 197.200. UCLA finished second at 196.750. UW beat No. 3 Stanford and snapped an 11-meet losing streak to the Cardinal. It was the second 196+ of the year for the Huskies and their highest score on the beam this season. UW has finished third at the Pac-10 Championships four previous times, the last in 2001. The 196.025 is the best team score by the Huskies since 2004 in the championships. Senior Samantha Walior tied with five others for the bars championship with a career-best 9.90. She is the first individual champion on any event for UW since 2007 and the third-ever bars champion. The Huskies got a 49.000 on bars. UW also got solid performances from Amanda Cline, Kristen Linton, Aliza Vaccher, Haley Bogart, Paige Bixler and Ruby Engreitz.
