On Saturday afternoon, fans were welcomed out to Tiger Performance Center for a last look at the team before they head out to Lexington, Kentucky on Thursday for NCAA Regionals, which will take place on Friday,
“We’re excited to hit the road later this week. We’ve got a little bit of preparation still to do, you know, as we’ve got a couple more days… When we’ve got this bye week, we just got to use it correctly and make sure we’re prepping and figuring out where do we get those last little half tenths
from and how do we build confidence as well with our young ladies.”
While we were told that Friday’s focus was floor and vault, Saturday focused mostly on bars and beam with a little bit of vault on the side. While I didn’t receive any reports about floor, the Tigers looked especially good on vault, with sticks from Hannah, Kimarra, Elise, Dakota and Railey. The non-sticks, I’m told, were very small steps or hops and controlled. “It was a very strong practice.”
Saturday’s open practice/intrasquad session featured practice sessions on vault — I saw sticks from Olivia Kelly, Ayla Acevedo (twice!) and just a slight foot move from Railey Jackson — beam, and bars before moving into more of a meet-style format with two sets of six-up lineups to test out some different variations. Some tough-scoring judges were on hand — it appeared to be a combo of coaching staff and Kennedy Griffin on beam (I couldn’t see the bars scoring, mostly).
“We’re building on consistency. I think this team’s gotten better as we move through the year,” Shannon said. “We have a little bit of a younger team, but they continue to get better. I think also to solidify some options as well. You know, planning on competing two days, we may need some options to sub in, sub out in those areas. So I think that was what we were trying to get done the last couple of days here, and just know who those options are.”
Round 1: Bars
- Makayla— Shannon called out her patience on her landing
- Kaia— step forward on dismount
- Olivia— her Church was so high!
- Maiya— high, high Gienger
- Hannah— amazing pirouette, stuck DLO, crowd chants 10 (I’m guessing that’s what she was awarded?)
- Kimarra— WOW. Kennedy gave her a 9.90 that I saw.
Round 2: Bars
- Makayla— stick. GREAT handstands
- LMac— very strong handstands, another stick
- Liv— very good
- Maiya— step back on dismount
- H2— lost her pirouette, restarted routine
- Ki
When asked about the little details that the bars squad is still working on — they looked fabulous on Saturday — Shannon first called out the change in coaching, as Whitney’s back (and will be at Regionals!). Let’s not forget, dear readers, that he had previously proclaimed the reason the bars squad was doing so well for a while was because he was in charge— he mentioned this jokingly on several occasions.
“I think it’s just slowing down. The details are the differences, I think between the pretty good teams and the great teams,” Shannon said. “So I think we just try to go back to some basics. Really think about hitting handstands. You know, either sticking or at least minimizing steps on dismounts, right? It doesn’t always have to be a stick, although that would be nice. But if we do have small step, make it a small step, not a big step or something like that. So I think it’s going to come down to not just who sticks the best and hits handstands the best, but who can manage some of the little things in between.”
Round 1: Beam
- Railey— no wobbles, stick (9.87)
- Kaia— no noticeable wobbles, stick (9.82)
- Lauren— no wobbles (missed score)
- Hayli (9.77)
- Liv— small hop on dismount (9.82)
- Addi— amazing (9.97)
- Amy— partial routine
Round 2: Beam
- RJ— wow. (9.95)
- Amy— full routine, looked strong (9.87)
- Kaia— step forward on dismount (9.75)
- Hayli (9.80)
- Liv— she leaned on one of her skills, leading to a judge’s conference (9.77)
- LMac— landed triple series on one foot, hop forward on dismount (9.72)
- Addi— missed score but looked great
When asked about Amy, who did a full routine in round 2, and her injury progression, Shannon said, “We’re just limiting numbers, but I think that second routine looked pretty good, pretty solid over there. And even the first one was good. We just pulled out the jump series. We changed that up in the dismount, just because we were running a different lineup and she was just kind of hopping in there at the end on the first round.”
“So yeah, I think she’s looking good, you know. I think we just have to assess her day by day… I know she can go one day, I think we’re just assessing, are we going to be able to do two days in a row, and is that the best option for our team? So that’s kind of why we ran it like that. It’s just running different lineups in there and just different personnel.”
I asked about Hayli’s emergence in the lineup, as it’s been a pretty recent occurrence. “She’s doing well over there, right? She moves well on that event. It’s just getting some numbers and getting some reps, you know. Hayli was out her senior year of high school — she had a little knee thing, nothing major — but it just kept her out of the season. So, you know, it just took her a little longer to get back into comp mode and get going on those things. So yeah, I’m excited for her. She’s taken a nice role over there and filled in when we needed her to. And I think this year is going to be really nice for her, but I think next year you’ll see a big jump from her, too.”
Vault
Watch the vault compilation video below! Kaia stuck her Pike Front Half in warmups.
Both Ayla, who replaced Railey in the lineup at SECs last minute on vault, and Railey, looked fantastic on Saturday. Does that have any implications for the Regionals lineup?
“I think we’re just trying to build good options, right? And if we can create some competitiveness within our own team, even better, right?” Shannon said.
Regarding Railey, Shannon posed that competition likely helps her as well, as she knows, “Hey listen, I’ve got to be good if I want to make this lineup. You know, I’m not just getting in because I have a 1.5 (Yurchenko 1.5 vault) over there. And 2) I think that actually builds confidence because then people don’t feel like, hey, it’s either I got to do it or it’s all riding on me now that they know other people can do it, too. And I think that brings a sense of confidence and calmness.”
When asked about Ayla’s performance specifically at SECs, he said, “I was really proud of Ayla, because we had that situation pop up once earlier in the year, and I pop her into a lineup kind of late, and it didn’t go quite as well as we wanted. And then to see her do it again, you know, we kind of call her our secret weapon on vault. That we can just kind of pop her in, pop her out, and she’s good with that. But I was really excited for her.”
UP NEXT:
Lexington, Kentucky and Historic Memorial Coliseum for NCAA Regionals.
When asked about the message for some of the team members who would be going through this part of the season for the first time— athletes like Maiya Terry, Kimarra Echols, Hayli Westerlind, Ayla Acevedo, for example — Shannon said, “I think this sport in particular is always chasing perfection, and so if you don’t hit it, it’s easy to, I think, you know, find the negatives, right? Which unfortunately, that’s part of our jobs. We’re always trying to find where the errors are, where those missing tenths are, where that stuff is.”
He continued. “So I think we’ve tried to flip the mindset a little bit as we move into this part of the year, and just recognize how much progress has been made… It’s not 10 or bust, right? There’s some other good scores in there, and there’s some areas where I think they just need to celebrate that and understand that… It’s rarely going to be perfect, and so to understand that it’s okay if it’s not perfect. And I think sometimes our young competitors forget that, and so we as coaches too, we got to remind them to enjoy it, too.”
