Florida Gators

FORT WORTH, Texas — The drama and mystery lingered even amidst the joyful celebration Thursday night following the UF gymnastic team's win to advance to the NCAA Finals.

The uncertainly centered on an equipment malfunction during Florida's uneven bars routine. Assistant coach Adrian Burde was seen talking to an NCAA official prior to a 10-minute delay that caused confusion among participants, spectators, media members and TV viewers.

"The podium was bouncing up and down,'' Burde said.

Was he the one who noticed it first? Burde said no, that he was not the conquering hero. He thought it was Gators assistant Owen Field, who coaches the Gators on bars.

"Something must have come loose under the podium and the whole thing was lifting up off the ground,'' Field said.

What caused Field to detect the dangerous situation? Field then cleared up that part of the mystery.

"Shea saved the day,'' he said.

Wait? Shea? Who is Shea?

Turns out, she is Shea Wheeler, a UF junior in her third season as team manager. For those interested in more about Shea, she was born in Minnesota, moved to Florida when she was 7, and has called Clearwater home ever since.

She also spent 15 years as a competitive gymnast and knows the sport, including what the bars apparatus is and isn't supposed to do during competition.

"I went to pull the board for Savannah [Schoenherr's] dismount and got off the podium and noticed while she was doing her routine that the floor was moving up and down where the wire sits,'' Wheeler said. "I knew that wasn't right. The podium shouldn't do that." Wheeler notified Field, who shared the news with Burde. Meanwhile, Burde was already having an unusual night. While spotting Payton Richards on her vault routine, Burde injured his hand and it immediately began to swell.

Gators head coach Jenny Rowland urged Burde to get an X-ray in the medical room at Dickies Arena. The X-ray showed a pair of fractures in his right hand, which was wrapped in ice as Burde recounted the strange sequence of events.

"I never broke anything when I was a gymnast, and I broke my hand spotting here,'' he said.

When he first heard of the bars platform bouncing up and down, Burde went over and planned to sit on the podium to hold it down as Megan Skaggs did her routine. That's when an official told Burde he was not allowed to sit there. Burde shared the reason why.

As the tension built, Skaggs performed her routine, posting a 9.9125 despite the extra bounce.

"Nailed it,'' Field said. "She did a great job."

Finally, after seeing the issue brought to his attention by the Gators with his own eyes, an NCAA official took a closer look at the setup and discovered that the weights used to anchor the uneven bars — a system of jugs believed to be filled with either water or sand — were not bound together. The jugs bound together provide a single mass to stabilize the uneven bars. Without the binding to hold the jugs together, there wasn't a cohesive unit to properly anchor the bars. In the postseason, the gymnasts compete on podiums instead of the arena floor, which requires a modified system to secure the apparatuses in place.

Considering the situation the Gators faced in the moment, it was a dicey spot. They struggled on vault, their opening rotation, and after four routines on the bars, sat in third place. The top two teams advanced in the second semifinal to join Utah and Oklahoma on Saturday in the Final Four. "The vaults were a bit, a little out of control,'' Rowland said. "You could tell they were a little tight after that."

While Skaggs, Trinity Thomas and Leanne Wong each posted 9.900s on vault, Schoenherr, Sloane Blakely and Nya Reed had failed to hit 9.800, leaving the Gators with some ground to make up.

Coincidentally, that's exactly what they did, starting with Thomas' bars routine after the delay. She posted a 9.975, good enough to be crowned national champion in the event.

Thomas tried to relax during the delay, even putting her warmups back on.

"At first, I was so confused,'' Thomas said. "But then, they were like, 'oh, it's a 10-minute wait, you get to go warm up again.' Then I just started cracking jokes. I honestly was fine and then I was ready to go."

Wong followed Thomas on bars with a 9.9125, and then the Gators took off on the beam and floor routine, overcoming their early deficit to nip Auburn for the national semifinal victory. Defending national champion Michigan and Missouri failed to advance.

Rowland was relieved and overjoyed by the way the Gators responded after the most unusual delay. Burde, in his 16th season at UF, said he had never seen a meet stopped for that reason.

In the end, it became a quirky footnote.

"When we had an equipment failure, it actually, in hindsight, was a great reset,'' Rowland said. "Everybody just took their breath and kept fighting, kept digging, kept their head down and kept doing what Gators have been doing all year long. We survived and advanced and keep dancing.

"I was just glad it was Trinity next. She can remain calm, poised and just get up and do what she is capable of doing. We kept taking our small bites and not one huge gulp."

Florida's surge following the delay silenced any potential controversy should they have finished third and not been able to redo their previous routines on bars. That would have been one of the biggest controversies in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex since everyone wondered who shot J.R.

Instead, Wheeler intervened. What made her speak up, anyway?

"It could potentially be a safety concern. I wanted to put the girls' safety first,'' she said. "It was really just perfect timing."

On this night, Shea definitely saved the day.