(Photo: Susan Wong/WCSN)
The second session of the Pac-12 Conference Championships was a race for the top spot, but it just wasn’t one Arizona State Gymnastics was a part of.
After being included with Utah, Cal and Oregon State in a four-way split of the Pac-12 regular season title, the Sun Devils seemed leagues behind their fellow co-champions at the championship meet.
ASU, Cal and Oregon State were met with a crowd overflowing with hostile fans in West Valley, Utah at the Maverik Center, which was a convenient 20-minute drive from the Utes’ home arena. The trio faced the challenge of staying focused through the passionate cheers of Utah fans after every routine.
From the beginning, the Sun Devils were expected to play catch-up. ASU started on the floor exercise, its worst event this season, and preceded to make good on that expectation.
The rotation started off decently with junior Jordyn Jaslow and sophomore Emily White scoring a 9.800 and 9.875 respectively. The energy started to shift, however, when sophomore Sarah Clark only scored a 9.750. Freshman Alex Theodorou seemingly pulled the rotation back together with another 9.800, but sophomore Jada Mangahas and junior Hannah Scharf only managed to score a 9.725 and a 9.750 respectively to finish off the rotation and bring the Sun Devils’ total to 48.975.
Many of ASU’s performances on floor were marked by uncontrolled landings, an aspect of routines ASU coaches have focused on all season. However, with this being the Sun Devils’ first meet on-podium for the season, it appeared they weren’t able to adjust to the added bounce.
After the first event, ASU trailed the other three teams, coming in 0.475 points behind the leading Oregon State Beavers.
In the second rotation on vault, the Sun Devils seemed more like themselves, but the damage had already been done.
All of the scores that counted toward the final score met or exceeded the 9.800 mark. The rotation was highlighted by back-to-back 9.850s by Mangahas and Scharf before Theodorou closed out the rotation with a 9.900. ASU brought its total score to 98.225 but remained in fourth place.
Despite getting back to “normal,” the vault lineup lacked the extra push ASU hoped to receive from sophomore Anaya Smith. Smith, who competed for the first time this season last week after being injured, was noticeably absent from the lineup.
While the Sun Devils dragged behind, the other three teams went back-and-forth with high scores, including a perfect 10.0 on the uneven bars by Utah freshman Grace McCallum. After some reshuffling on the leaderboard, Utah overtook Oregon State for the lead at the halfway point with a total of 98.825. Cal stayed close in the battle finishing the first half of the meet tied with the Beavers at 98.800.
Entering the back half of the meet trailing first place by 0.600 points, the Sun Devils weren’t completely out of contention when they headed to bars.
ASU’s strongest rotation of the night started off with a 9.825 by Mangahas followed by a 9.850 from junior Gracie Reeves. With that score, Reeves kept her season-long 9.800-plus streak on bars alive. The rest of the rotation delivered solid scores as well, once again having all counted scores hit or surpass 9.800. Theodorou, Scharf and Clark all joined Reeves at the 9.850 benchmark to give ASU another 49.000-plus event total.
Going into the final rotation, ASU hadn’t moved from last place, and trailing first-place Utah by 1.025 points, the Sun Devils were realistically out of contention for the title. Additionally, they needed a 49.525 in the final rotation to finish ahead of fifth-seeded UCLA.
Another trio of 9.850s by White and seniors Megan Thompson and Jasmine Gutierrez added to the total, but a plethora of wobbles and bobbles throughout the rotation would prevent ASU from getting the score it needed. Scharf finished off the disappointing night for the Sun Devils with a 9.900 to bring ASU’s total score to 196.675 and a fifth-place finish.
Utah took the title with a score of 198.000 to outpace Cal and Oregon State, and pick up some extra momentum before heading into regionals as one of four No. 1 seeds.
The Sun Devils’ best individual finish came from Theodorou, who tied for second on vault with Oregon State freshman Jade Carey.
After coming into the night behind ASU by three spots, the Bruins overtook the Sun Devils in the rankings and worked their way to a top-16 spot for a seeded placement at regionals. The Sun Devils, while improving their National Qualifying Score (NQS), fell two spots to No. 16, and now likely face a more challenging path in their pursuit of a spot at NCAA Nationals that runs through No. 1 Oklahoma in the Sooners’ home gym.
Due to the performances from the early session that featured UCLA, Stanford, Washington and Arizona, all eight Pac-12 women’s gymnastics teams finished amongst the top-36 squads in the country, qualifying for a spot in the regional competitions.
Regionals selections and placements will be made by the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Committee on March 22. The first round of regional competition will begin on March 30 with a “play-in” dual meet between two unseeded teams in each region.
