NCAA BRACKET
Ball State
Four Ball State Gym Cards have earned NCAA Gymnastics Regional berths, as the NCAA announced the field for the 2021 NCAA Gymnastics Championships on Monday night. Freshman Victoria Henry (vault), senior Claudia Goyco (floor) and sophomore Megan Teter and Grace Evans (uneven bars) will compete as individuals at the Tuscaloosa Regional April 1-3, hosted by Alabama.
Henry, from Woodbridge, Virginia, was voted second team All-MAC and will continue her freshman season in Alabama. She delivered four vault scores of 9.8 or better, including a career best 9.925 at Eastern Michigan on Feb. 6. She averaged 9.800 over her last three meets and ranked second in the MAC with a 9.85 vault NSQ.
Goyco, a senior from Buford, Georgia, was MAC Specialist of the Year on floor last year and an All-MAC performer. She has five outings with a 9.85 or better on floor with two routines scoring 9.90. Goyco, after tying for the MAC lead in floor NSQ last year, ranked ninth this year.
Central Michigan
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – The Central Michigan gymnastics teams is headed to Athens, Ga. in two weeks for the NCAA Regional.
The Chippewas learned their destination on Monday afternoon during the NCAA Selection Show, before which coach Christine MacDonald presented to several Chippewas the medals they earned for receiving All-Mid-American Conference honors and MAC All-Tournament Team honors at Saturday's league-championship meet.
CMU ended the regular season with the 25th best national qualifying score (196.275) in the nation, a spot that guaranteed it a spot in the postseason.
"It's been a year of firsts for half of our team and this is another one," said MacDonald, whose team lists 14 freshmen and sophomores among the 19 student-athletes on the roster. "To go to the next level is something you work for all year long. To be able to have this opportunity and to be in a position where we don't have to be in the play-in meet, that is huge for us.
"It's a very competitive group that we'll be going up against and it's going to be very exciting. Everybody is re-set after last weekend (MAC Championships) and we're ready for it."
Nine teams comprise each of nation's four regionals. The Chippewas are pooled with Florida, Illinois, Western Michigan and North Carolina State on one side of the bracket. The Broncos and N.C. State will open the regional with a dual meet on April 1 with the winner advancing to compete in a quad with the Chippewas, Gators and Illini on April 2.
The top two teams from that quad will then square off in a quad with the top two teams from the quartet on the other side of the bracket. Those four are host Georgia, Denver, Minnesota and Oregon State.
The top two teams from the April 3 quad advance to the NCAA Championships on April 16 in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Chippewas have earned 12-consecutive NCAA Regional berths and 17 since 1999.
Eastern Michigan
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (EMUEagles.com) - The NCAA Gymnastics Selection Show announced Monday, March 22, that the Eastern Michigan University gymnastics team has officially punched its ticket to regionals. The Green and White will travel to Tuscaloosa, Ala. where the University of Alabama will host a first-round meeting between Eastern Michigan and Maryland, April 1.
"We are really excited to be going to Alabama," said Head Coach Katie Minasola. "They put on a great competition, my experiences there, both as an athlete and as a coach, have been wonderful. I'm excited for our team to compete and gain invaluable experience at the NCAA Regional Championships."
This year, the NCAA changed the way gymnasts qualify for the postseason as they have implemented a National Qualifying Score (NQS) as criteria. This is calculated using a team or individuals's four highest season scores and averaging them, to then rank and determine who qualifies. Of those four scores, two must be from away meets.
Only the top-36 teams qualified based on their respective national qualifying scores. Going into the selection show, the Eagles earned an NQS of 195.950, placing them 31st in the country. The Terrapins produced a 195.913 to finish 32nd. On an individual basis, Eastern would have five competitors showcase their skills if the team did not advance.
Senior Jada Rondeau (Savage, Minn.-Central) would be doing triple duty for the Eagles, making appearances in bars, beam, and floor. Sophomore Hadyn Crossen (Carmel, Ind.-Carmel) would represent the Green and White in all around, while senior Cortney Bezold (Maineville, Ohio-Bishop Fenwick) on bars. Finally, junior Caitlin Satler (Orland Park, Ill.-Carl Sandburg) and Shannon Gregory (Edison, N.J.-John P. Stevens) would both be set to compete on beam.
For Eastern, this is their first trip to regionals as a team since the 2017 season. That year, the Eagles earned a trip to regionals after winning the Mid-American Conference Championship with a score of 196.500. At regionals, EMU faced-off against the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (host), ultimately falling 195.400-195.825.
In 2019, the Green and White sent then-sophomore Bezold and former Eagles Emili Dobronics and Allie Smith, to the regional event in Ann Arbor, Mich. At the meet, Bezold tied for 15th overall on bars, while Dobronics finished tied for 11th in all-around and Smith was tied for 48th on vault.
To stay up to date with all things Eastern Michigan gymnastics, go to EMUEagles.com or follow us on Twitter (@EMUGym) and Instagram (@EMUGym).
Kent State
Coming Soon...
Northern Illinois
DeKALB, Ill. – Northern Illinois University gymnasts Natalie Hamp, Tara Kofmehl and Zoie Schroeder have earned bids to the NCAA Regionals and will compete in their respective events on Friday, April 2 in Salt Lake City, Utah as the NCAA announced the field for the 2021 Championships Monday.
Hamp and Schroeder were selected as individuals on uneven parallel bars and balance beam, respectively, while Kofmehl is in the field as an all-around competitor. All three will be making their NCAA Regional debuts. They will compete in Friday's first session, scheduled for 2 p.m. (CT) and rotate with Southern Utah.
Western Michigan
KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- For the first time in the modern era, the Western Michigan University gymnastics team has qualified for an NCAA Regional.
The Broncos will compete in the Athens Regional, hosted by the University of Georgia. WMU is slated to face NC State in the opening round on Friday, April 1, at 3 p.m. ET. The winner will advance to a second-round showdown with Central Michigan on Saturday, April 2. That winner will face the winner of a meet between Florida and Illinois for the right to advance to the national meet. The NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships to be held April 16-17 in Fort Worth, Texas.
Western Michigan boasts the 2021 Mid-American Conference Gymnast of the Year, Freshman of the Year and All-Around Champion. In addition, the season saw school records in all-around and balance beam and team scores in excess of 196 twice, a mark reached only four times previously.
In addition, Payton Murphy was selected to the individual all-around competition, giving her the opportunity to continue competing even if the Broncos do not advance out of the first round. WMU has qualified an individual to NCAA regionals every year since 2005, most recently with Morgan Spence (bars) and Rachael Underwood (all-around) in 2019.
WMU last reached an NCAA regional in 1981, a point in time that saw competing postseason championships take place between the NCAA and the now-defunct Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). Coached by current Western Michigan athletics director Kathy Beauregard, the Broncos placed third at NCAA Regionals that year.
Current head coach Penny Jernigan has led the Broncos to several new heights in recent seasons. Last year, WMU captured its fifth MAC Championship, winning the regular-season title before the championship meet was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year has seen the Broncos twice eclipse the 196 team score, including in a victory at Kent State that gave WMU its first road win over the Golden Flashes since 1991.
Murphy, who missed all but one meet during her freshman season after a devastating neck injury, was voted MAC Gymnast of the Year. Murphy set the school record for all-around in a dual meet win over Eastern Michigan, scoring 39.375. In that same meet, she posted 9.950 on balance beam, tying a 17-year old school record.
Murphy owns the top National Qualifying Score (NQS) in the MAC on balance beam this season at 9.913, as well as the league's second-best NQS in all-around at 39.306. She was also one of three first-team All-MAC selections this year.
Sarah Moravansky was voted MAC Freshman of the Year and won the all-around title at the MAC Championships. She owns the top all-around NQS in the MAC by a freshman and she won all-around competition at Kent State in addition to her MAC Championship victory.
The Broncos also boast three All-Tournament selections in Ronni Binstock, Dani Petrousek and Moravansky. Binstock and Petrousek each scored 9.900 on floor at the championship meet, helping WMU post a team floor score of 49.325 (just shy of the school record 49.375).
