Florida's Alaina Johnson named SEC Gymnast of the Week
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 | Gymnastics
Florida sophomore All-American Alaina Johnson (Tyler, Texas) is this week's Southeastern Conference Gymnast of the Week, the league office announced Tuesday. Auburn's Bri Guy is the SEC Freshman Gymnast of the Week.
| Gator Gymnasts Honored by SEC in 2012 | ||
| Week | Gymnast of Week | Freshman of Week |
| 3 | Kytra Hunter | |
| 4 | Ashan?e Dickerson | Kytra Hunter |
| 5 | ||
| 6 | Kytra Hunter | |
| 7 | Alaina Johnson | |
Johnson posted the Gators' season-best all-around total of 39.625 last Friday in Florida's win at No. 17 Auburn. It was Johnson's first all-around win of the season and the fourth in her career. Her all-around score is the nation's fourth-highest total of the season and the highest of any posted last weekend. Johnson also equaled her collegiate-best vault score of 9.95 for the second consecutive meet to share the vault title with freshman Kytra Hunter.
This is Johnson's first league honor of the season. In 2011, Johnson was named the SEC Gymnast of the week once and the SEC Freshman Gymnast of the Week four times. She finished her debut season as the SEC Freshman of the Year and picked up three All-America honors as she became only the second Gator in the program's history to advance to three NCAA Individual Event Finals (vault, bars, floor) in a single year.
| Did You Know… | ||
| Alaina Johnson is the seventh Gator to pick up individual conference honors this week. This includes the American Lacrosse Conference naming Nora Barry its Freshman of the Week and Marcin Cieslak and Elizabeth Beisel being named the swimmers of the year at the Southeastern Conference Championships. | ||
| Sport | Athlete of Week | Freshman of Week |
| Men's Basketball | Bradley Beal | |
| Gymnastics | Alaina Johnson | |
| Lacrosse | Nora Barry | |
| Softball | Brittany Schutte | Lauren Haeger |
| Men's Swimmer of Year | Marcin Cieslak | |
| Women's Swimmer of Year | Elizabeth Beisel | |
In the Feb. 20 GymInfo national rankings, Johnson is No. 3 in the all-around (39.525 average), No. 17 in vault (9.89), No. 3 in uneven bars (9.889) and No. 12 in balance beam (9.843).
Next up, the top-ranked Gators face the No. T-3 Georgia Gym Dogs in the Stephen C. O'Connell Center at 7 pm on Friday, Feb. 24. This will be the 18th time in the last 20 meetings between the two teams that one of the teams brings a No. 1 ranking into the competition.
Fans can pick up buy one, get one free general admission passes from any of the following area restaurants: Moe's, Planet Smoothie, Heavenly Ham and the Flying Biscuit Cafe. Tickets for Friday's meet are $4 for adults while children 17 and under and UF students with Gator 1 cards are admitted free. The first 1,000 fans through the door Friday receive light-up blue slotted sunglasses courtesy of Gatorade.
