Florida Gators
Southeastern Conference Championships
Gator gymnastics third at Southeastern Conference Championships
Sunday, March 22, 2015 | Gymnastics
DULUTH, Ga. – The Gator gymnastics team took third Saturday in the Southeastern Conference Championships held in front of a crowd of 8,758 at The Arena at Gwinnett Center – the second largest crowd in the history of the league meet.
| Florida Event Winners Saturday | ||
| Vault: | Kytra Hunter | 9.95 |
| Alex McMurtry | 9.95 | |
| Uneven Bars: | Bridget Sloan | 10.0 |
| Balance Beam: | Bridget Sloan | 9.95 |
| Floor Exercise: | Kytra Hunter | 9.975 |
The Gators were red-hot on their opening two events, turning in season-best totals for both vault (49.625) and uneven bars (49.575). The bars score included a 10.0 by junior All-American Bridget Sloan – her second straight and first ever for the Gators in SEC competition.
It is also a SEC record on the event, as the previous high of 9.975 was turned in by Georgia's Courtney Kupets in 2009 and Alabama's Kaitlyn Clark in 2014. Bars was the only apparatus that didn't have a 10.0 scored in previous SEC Championship competitions.
But Florida was forced to count a fall and a major break toward its balance beam total (48.625). Those mistakes were costly, dropping the team from leading the field by 0.45 to third place by 0.425.
Florida finished by posting the meet-high total for floor exercise (49.575) but couldn't catch the two teams ahead.
Alabama won its second consecutive SEC title at 197.525 and LSU took second at 197.45. Florida finished at 197.40.
Other team finishes Saturday included Auburn in fourth (196.925) followed by Georgia (196.00), Arkansas (195.95), Missouri (195.70) and Kentucky (195.025).
Gator Performance Notes:
· Kytra Hunter claimed a share of her third consecutive SEC floor win and also shared her second SEC vault win. The pair of wins brings her career total of SEC wins to seven. That passes the Florida record of six SEC titles set by Melissa Miller during her career (1986-89).
· Sloan took sole possession of two event titles – bars (10.0) and beam (9.95). She has won at least one SEC event title each of her three seasons with the Gators and Saturday's two wins gives her six SEC wins.
· Hunter is the first Gator to win a SEC title in each appearance in the league championships – 2012 (all-around, vault), 2013 (floor), 2014 (beam, floor) and 2015 (vault, floor). She is one of five in the 35-year history of the SEC Gymnastics Championships to win a league title each of their collegiate seasons.
· Alex McMurtry also shared the vault at 9.95. Of the seven Gators to win a SEC vault title, only McMurtry and Hunter (2012) did it during their freshman seasons.
· Bars is the first event Sloan has scored multiple 10.0 mark as she turned in her first perfect bars mark on March 13 in Florida's regular-season finale. She became the first Gator and the seventh collegiate ever to record a “GymSlam” – earning a 10.0 on each of the four apparatus.
Records: Florida (12-5, 5-2 SEC), Alabama (15-3, 5-2 SEC), Arkansas (7-13, 2-5 SEC), Auburn (11-8, 3-4 SEC), Georgia (8-10, 3-4 SEC), Kentucky (7-12, 3-4 SEC), LSU (19-2, 7-0 SEC), Missouri (7-13, 0-7 SEC)
Florida in the SEC Championships: The Gators were looking for their 10th SEC Championship tonight, having won nine previous titles (1982, '83, '84, '85, '89, '07, '10, '12, '13)
| Did You Know… | |
| Kytra Hunter is one of five in the 35-year history of the Southeastern Conference Gymnastics Championships to claim an event title each season of her collegiate career. | |
| SEC Gymnasts winning SEC titles each year of collegiate career | |
| Kytra Hunter, Florida | 2012 AA, V, 2013 FX, 2014 BB, FX, 2015 V, FX |
| Lloimincia Hall, LSU | 2012 FX, 2013 FX, 2014 FX, 2015 FX |
| Ashley Miles, Alabama | 2003 FX, 2004 FX, 2005 V, UB, FX, 2006 FX |
| Jenny Hansen, Kentucky | 1993 AA, V, UB, 1994 V, FX 1995 BB, FX 1996 BB, FX |
| Kathy McMinn, Georgia | 1981 UB, 1982 V, 1983 UB, 1984 AA, UB |
Quoting the Gators:
On tonight's performance:
“We had an amazing start. It is the best that we've done on the first two events at any SEC Championship. We feel the pain right now because beam was awful. It has to be one of the toughest beam rotations I can remember in my history at Florida. That is the hard part. We knew our performance was stellar up until that point. It is very hard to recover from that type of performance. They fought hard on floor, but it was just too much to overcome.
“I think it is very eye-opening for not only the freshmen, but for everyone on the team. This is a learning experience. They know how talented we are and the potential we possess. It is going to be important that we really focus on why the mistakes happened so that it doesn't happen again at regionals and nationals. They need to learn from this and turn it around.” - Florida Head Coach Rhonda Faehn
Going forward:
“The team is incredibly disappointed. But this is part of the process. We have to take from this competition knowing that we have to go out and perform like we are capable of. This team is absolutely one of the front runners challenging for the national title. But we cannot perform that way on balance beam, or any of the events for that matter.” - Florida Head Coach Rhonda Faehn
| Sloan Sets SEC Uneven Bars Record | ||||
| Bridget Sloan's 10.0 set the Southeastern Conference Championships uneven bars meet record. It was the 16th perfect mark in the 35-year history of the SEC Championships' meet and the first on uneven bars. | ||||
| Event | Score | Name | School | Date |
| Vault | 10.0 | Rheagan Courville | LSU | 2013 |
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| 10.0 | Chelsa Byrd | Georgia | 2003 |
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| 10.0 | Karin Lichey | Georgia | 1998 |
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| 10.0 | Kim Arnold | Georgia | 1997 |
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| 10.0 | Leah Brown | Georgia | 1997 |
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| 10.0 | Jenny Hansen | Kentucky | 1993, '94 |
| Bars | 10.0 | Bridget Sloan | Florida | 2015 |
| Beam | 10.0 | Cory Fritzinger | Georgia | 2004 |
| Floor | 10.0 | Marline Stephens | Georgia | 2004 |
| 10.0 | Ashley Miles | Alabama | 2004 | |
| 10.0 | Kim Arnold | Georgia | 1998 | |
| 10.0 | Jenny Hansen | Kentucky | 1994 | |
| 10.0 | Hope Spivey-Sheeley | Georgia | 1992, '93, '94 | |
On the Gators' beam rotation:
“It is very disappointing, but at the same time, it really fuels the fire. We obviously did not have a good beam rotation and I will admit that it was very nerve racking going last , knowing that we had two falls and another mess-up. I thought 'I have nothing to lose.' Tonight was a learning experience and we have to move on from it.
“But at same time, we have to let it sink in a bit. We know we could have done it. With the mistakes on beam, we were still so close. It just comes down to how bad you want it. You make mistakes but you learn from them. We will definitely learn from this.” - – Florida junior All-America Bridget Sloan
On what the Gators will take from this performance:
“This is a turning point. We still have a month to go with regionals and nationals. We can either let this meet hurt us or make us better. It is up to us.
“We are excited for the meets coming up. I think that the adrenaline and the mistakes we had tonight are going to push us even more. We will go back, watch film and see the corrections we need to make. We will work to get prepared for the next meet.” – senior All-American Kytra Hunter
On her 10.0:
“It is feel incredible. Going into tonight, I knew that I wanted to hit the three events I was competing the best I could to help my Gator team. Bars is my favorite event and I just wanted to do the best I could. It felt incredible. My parents are here and it was very special.” – Florida junior All-America Bridget Sloan
SEC EVENT CHAMPIONS:
| All-Around | Rheagan Courville | LSU | 39.525 |
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| Jessie Jordan | LSU | 39.525 |
| Vault | Kytra Hunter | Florida | 9.950 |
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| Alex McMurtry | Florida | 9.950 |
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| Kaitlyn Clark | Alabama | 9.950 |
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| Myia Hambrick | LSU | 9.950 |
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| Rheagan Courville | LSU | 9.950 |
| Bars | Bridget Sloan | Florida | 10.00 |
| Beam | Bridget Sloan | Florida | 9.950 |
| Floor | Kytra Hunter | Florida | 9.975 |
| Lloimincia Hall | LSU | 9.975 | |
National Rank:
Florida – Florida is No. 2 in the March 16 GymInfo rankings. This is the fourth week the national rankings are based on regional qualifying score.
Five of the nation's top-10 teams (No. 2 Florida, No.3 LSU, No. 5 Alabama, No. 8 Auburn and No. 9 Georgia) are in the SEC. In addition, Arkansas (No. 18) and Kentucky (No. 25) are among the top 25.
Up Next:
The announcement of the fields for 2015 NCAA Regional Championship action is revealed Monday, March 23 at 3 p.m. ET on NCAA.com.
Each of the six regional sites will have six-team fields. The top two teams at each regional site advances to the NCAA Championships, which makes its first appearance in the Lone Star State April 17-19 in Fort Worth, Texas.
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| @UFCoachRhonda (Rhonda Faehn) |
| No. 2 Florida at Southeastern Conference Championships Final Team Totals | |||||
| March 21, 2015 ● The Arena at Gwinnett Center (8,758) | |||||
| Team | Vault | Bars | Beam | Floor | Total |
| Alabama | 49.500 | 49.275 | 49.275 | 49.475 | 197.525 |
| LSU | 49.550 | 49.375 | 48.975 | 49.550 | 197.450 |
| Florida | 49.625 | 49.575 | 48.625 | 49.575 | 197.400 |
| Auburn | 49.300 | 49.150 | 49.400 | 49.075 | 196.925 |
| Georgia | 49.125 | 49.375 | 48.150 | 49.350 | 196.000 |
| Arkansas | 49.250 | 48.825 | 48.675 | 49.200 | 195.950 |
| Missouri | 48.850 | 49.000 | 48.775 | 49.075 | 195.700 |
| Kentucky | 48.875 | 48.575 | 48.275 | 49.300 | 195.025 |
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