Confident Huskies Are
April 1, 2011
By Gregg Bell
UW Director of Writing
SEATTLE -
The Huskies' gymnasts aren't outsiders anymore.The Gym Dawgs have landed in Norman, Okla., for this weekend's NCAA regionals at the University of Oklahoma. That in itself is no big whoop - Washington has been to an NCAA regional in every year but one since 1982.
But this is the first time in 13 years the Huskies are seeded at a regional. Strong senior seasons from Samantha Walior, Kristen Linton and Haley Bogart plus All-Pac-10 performances by Walior on the beam and bars, Linton on the floor exercise, Amanda Cline on vault and Ruby Engreitz on bars earned UW its season goal: A top-18 national ranking in the vital regional qualifying score, which earned Washington its top-four seeding at a regional.
"It's a bigger deal for us this year because we are seeded," Engreitz said. "But we will still have to upset the No. 5 team or the No. 7 team in the country to get to nationals."
After roaring past third-ranked Stanford to finish third at the Pac-10 championships, Washington is seeded third at the Norman regional behind Oklahoma and Utah. The Huskies have already faced and lost narrowly to both the Sooners and Utes this season.
The approximately three-hour meet begins Saturday at 2 p.m. Pacific time, with a live chat from the site here on GoHuskies.com. The top two finishers in the region advance to the NCAA championships April 15 in Cleveland.
"That's our ultimate goal," said Engreitz, a junior from Kirkland, Wash., who watched from afar last spring when Walior and Linton went to the NCAA finals individually. "This year that is what we've been building towards."
UW hasn't reached the finals as a team since 1998. That's the last time it was a top-four seed at a regional.
"We're through the wall," Huskies coach Joanne Bowers said. "All year we've been ranked 11th to 17th (in the RQS). "(Among) judges and the public, the higher the seed you are, the more you get the perception you have a strong program."
And perception is reality in college gymnastics.
In basketball, Virginia Commonwealth has won as an 11th seed in the NCAA tournament from a play-in game all the way to the Final Four simply because more of the underdog Rams' shots have gone in than their opponents'. The better-performing team in their games has advanced.
That's not always so in gymnastics, in which points and victories are judged by others instead of scored by players. About the only way a low seed advances out of the regional is if gymnasts on all the top seeds ahead of it fall off the balance beam, lose their grips on the bars or fall on their faces in the floor exercise. History has proven that the human factor of judging -- specifically judges' perceptions of which teams are strong and which aren't there yet -- are too large of obstacles for lower-rated teams to overcome for advancement to the national finals.
"The good teams tend to get the benefit of the doubt," Bowers said. "I've judged for years, and I don't hold a bias, but you do have perceptions. It's subconscious. It's a human factor in our sport.
"When we start being the team that is a top seed, then we will get the benefit of the doubt (in scoring)."
Even with their new-found status as a three seed - even though the Huskies have been hitting all 24 of their routines in each meet for months and are now bubbling with supreme confidence that Bowers says has become "a swagger" -- the Gym Dawgs know they are going to need Oklahoma or Utah to falter to advance.
But this time, for the first time in 13 years, Washington is the first in line to advance if those teams do bonk.
"Finishing the season ranked in the top 18 allows us to open a door if one of the two teams seeded ahead of us falter," said Bowers, a veteran of national finals when she was an assistant at Michigan.
"We are where we wanted to be this season, when we started back in September. Now, let's see what happens."
