Gator gymnasts Kytra Hunter and Bridget Sloan pick up SEC honors
Tuesday, March 17, 2015 | Gymnastics
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Two Gator gymnasts picked up a pair of the final Southeastern Conference weekly honors, the league office announced Tuesday. Senior Kytra Hunter is the SEC Gymnast of the Week for the fourth time this season and junior Bridget Sloan claimed a share of her second SEC Specialist of the Week honor.
Other league winners were LSU's Lloimincia Hall, who posted a 10.0 on floor and shares the SEC Specialist of the Week honor with Sloan. SEC Freshman of the Week is Paige Zaziski of Arkansas.
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| Kytra Hunter |
Hunter Performance versus TWU:
Hunter's winning all-around total of 39.675 was tops in the nation last weekend and gives her eight all-around wins this season. Her 20th victory as a Gator moves her to a tie for third on Florida's Career All-Around list.
She is the nation's top-ranked all-arounder and Friday's mark is one of her four scores among the nation's top nine in 2015.
Hunter was nearly perfect on floor, as her 9.975 mark equals her season high for the third time. It was her fifth win on the event this season and the 27th of her career, putting her one behind the school-record of floor wins set by Gator Hall of Fame member Melissa Miller (1986-89).
This is ninth SEC Gymnast of the Week honor for Hunter as she has claimed the honor at least once every season of her career.
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| Bridget Sloan |
Sloan's Performance versus TWU:
The regular season finale brought the final 10.0 for Sloan to complete her share of every Florida event record. Sloan, the defending NCAA uneven bars champion, brought the O'Connell Center crowd to their feet with her 10.0 on the event.
She is the first Gator to earn a 10.0 on each apparatus in the program's 43-year history. She is the seventh in the nation to complete a “GymSlam” and the first since Georgia's Courtney Kupets (2006-09).
Sloan also topped the evening's vault standings at 9.95. It was her first vault performance since she opened the season Jan. 11 with a 10.0 on the event. She severely sprained her right ankle during that meet's floor exercise competition and has been easing her way back into competition over the last five meets. She has competed bars the last five meets, beam the last two and vault Friday.
The two wins Friday bring her collegiate total of events win to 62, which is seventh all-time for the Gators.
| Florida's 2015 SEC Honorees | |||
| At least one Gator has picked up league honors in nine of the 10 weeks of the regular season. Five different Gators have been honored by the league this season. | |||
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| Week | SEC Gymnast | SEC Specialist | SEC Freshman |
| 1 | Jessie Jordan, LSU | Bridget Sloan, UF | Shauna Miller, MU |
| 2 | Jessie Jordan, LSU | Alex McMurtry, UF | Kennedy Baker, UF |
| Amanda Wellick, ARK | |||
| 3 | Rheagan Courville, LSU | Kaitlyn Clark, ALA | Paige Zaziski, ARK |
| 4 | Kytra Hunter, UF | Brandie Jay, UGA | Kennedy Baker, UF |
| 5 | Rheagan Courville, LSU | Erin Macadaeg, LSU | Ericha Fassbender, UF |
| 6 | Kytra Hunter, UF | MJ Rott, Auburn | Kennedy Baker, UF |
| Paige Zaziski, ARK | |||
| 7 | Kaitlyn Clark, ALA | Lloimincia Hall, LSU | Alex McMurtry, UF |
| Rheagan Courville, LSU | |||
| 8 | Caitlin Atkinson, Auburn | MJ Rott, Auburn | Kennedy Baker, UF |
| 9 | Kytra Hunter, UF | Rheagan Courville, LSU | Myia Hambrick, LSU |
| 10 | Kytra Hunter, UF | Bridget Sloan, UF | Paige Zaziski, ARK |
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| Lloimincia Hall, LSU | ||
Next up for the Gators:
The Gators look for their 10th league title at the Southeastern Conference Championships, set for March 21 in The Arena at Gwinnett Center in Duluth, Georgia.
Tickets for Saturday's meet range in price from $16 to $12 and can be purchaed at the Gwinnett Center site.
Competition is in two sessions – seeds 5-8 compete at 2 p.m. ET and seeds 1-4 compete at 6 p.m. ET. Results from the two sessions are combined to determine team and individual standings.
The SEC Championships will be streamed live on the SEC Network+, which can be viewed by all SEC Network subscribers. Links for both sessions are below:
6 p.m. session SEC Network+ (includes Florida)
The 2015 SEC Championships will air tape-delayed on ESPNU (Gainesville/Ocala Cox cable channel 1251) on March 26 at 5 p.m. and again on March 27 at 3:30 a.m. ET and on ESPN2 (Cox cable 27 or 1027) on March 28 at 1 p.m. ET.
The meet will also air tape-delayed on the SEC Network (Cox cable 68 or 1068) five times:
March 24 9 p.m.
March 25 1 a.m. 5 a.m. Noon
March 30 9 p.m.
Live scoring can be found on GatorZone.com.
