Follow Along Sunday

Stanford is about to get underway with a quad meet at home, and UCLA is visiting Cal today.  We don't have live video for either of these meets, but I'm going to update here with scores and thoughts.

UCLA needs to get the confidence going on beam (inexcusable!) as soon as possible to set themselves up for the rest of the season.  I'd also like to see a more complete floor rotation out of this meet.  This is a meet they should win handily, so normally I would expect to see a lot of lineup experimentation, but the coaches may want to keep things the same to build this group confidence up on those two events at least.

For Stanford, Shapiro is in the lineup on only bars and Ivana Hong is not in at all.  We knew going into the season that this team would be very reliant on these two freshmen and was in a risky situation with their injury history.  We will have to see how they cope without some of the star routines they were relying on.



Stanford will begin on vault with Morgan, Meyer, Hanset, Pechanec, Dayton, and Archer.  Only Morgan and Dayton were in the lineup last postseason.

Please look at Sacramento State's floor lineup: we have Katie, Kaila, Kalliah, Cayla, and Kailey.

MDLT begins with a 9.700 on bars for UCLA.  She's capable of much higher and went 9.850 last week.

Gerber follows with 9.775.  I thought her 9.9 last week was a smidge high because of the leg separation on the pak, but this is a touch lower than expectations.

Larson goes 9.725.  This is not the start UCLA wanted after they were pretty solid on bars last week.  So far, Cal is led by a 9.800 from Crystal Paz on vault.  No updates on the scores yet for Stanford.

Peszek puts up 9.775 (9.850 from Judge 1 and 9.700 from Judge 2, interesting).  Big pressure on the final 2 gymnasts to pick up the pace.  This team is too good for a bunch of 9.7s on bars

Zamarripa delivers a 9.9 to take some of the pressure off.  She went 9.825 last week with a big loss of form in handstand, so this is good improvement.

Cal finishes vault with a great rotation for them: 48.850.  Olivia Courtney goes 9.800 to finish UCLA's bars rotation at 48.975.  That's a big letdown from last week on this event - where they showed the same lineup.  They'll need to get some momentum on vault.  (Still nothing on the Stanford scoreboard). If UCLA is to keep pace or improve on last week, they'll have to rock vault and hit beam.

UCLA to vault now where Baer starts with a 9.875 followed by Larson's 9.850.  This is more like it from them.  They'll need to keep these scores up to balance out bars and stay well over 196 pace going into beam and floor.

Quite a luxury to have someone as talented as Courtney #3 in the lineup, she was 5th and 6th most of last season.  She goes 9.925.

Frattone goes 9.825, which is low from her.  She stuck for 9.950 last week but the danger of her Omelianchik is that, when she doesn't stick, it's usually a large step forward that takes a big chunk out of the score.

Hello, Sam Peszek just went 9.925 but with a 10 from one judge and a 9.850 from another.  I question that 10 because her amplitude and distance is usually not enough to warrant that.

Did I mention 10s?  Zamarripa just put up a 10 on vault.  We know she's capable of earning it, but it will be interesting to see some video to evaluate.

UCLA recovered in a big way from bars, exceeding their vault score from last week by putting up a 49.575 for a total of 98.550.  They were able to drop Frattone's 9.825.  Cal goes 48.475 on bars for a total of 97.325.  If they could keep up this pace into 194 territory, that would be a great score for them.

While we aren't getting routine scores from the Stanford meet, we see they just went 48.850 on vault.

Aisha hits floor for 9.825.  Her tumbling was uncertain last week with some awkward landings, so that's an encouraging sign for her consistently making this lineup.

Cal will have to count a fall on beam after starting with two 9.150s (they were on such a good pace!), and Frattone has put up 9.800 on floor.  Ouch, and a 9.250 for Cal third up on beam.  Damage control time now.

Interesting, Hopfner-Hibbs is up 3rd in the floor lineup (I can't remember the last time she was that early on floor) after anchoring the rotation last week with a weak performance.  She goes 9.900, which is a huge recovery from the 9.675 against Utah.

Wong has been placed into the floor lineup (where she has scored 9.9 in the past) and she has a fall for 9.225.  Not a great start to the season for her.  Time to tighten up or this could go downhill very fast.

Peszek hits for 9.825.  The anchor (which should be either Larson or Courtney) can handily erase Wong's fall with a hit and make this a solid rotation, but they're probably not going to be as far over 49 as they'd like even if they get a hit.

Disaster for Cal on beam, counting 3 falls to score 47.200 and a running total of 144.525.  They were doing so well.  Mattie Larson has another mistake for UCLA, which means they are counting a fall on floor and score 48.575 for a total of 147.125.  At least we have Val's press conference to look forward to.  I have a feeling things are going to be inexcusable again.  Oh Mattie and the floor...the saga continues.

Now UCLA is in a position where they must hit 5 of 6 on beam.  Be worried.

Aisha Gerber hits for 9.850 -- 1 down, 4 to go.  (I'd still like to see her solidity in the middle of the lineup, though).  (NOTE: This score just got revised to 9.900)

Frattone is in the beam lineup (didn't Val say she was going to keep it the same?) and got a 9.700, which is not great, but she stayed on the beam, so...

HUGE hit for Lichelle Wong to get 9.925.  After the problems last week and the fall on floor, that's a tremendous accomplishment.  3 hits, 2 more to go...

Larson also recovers from her floor fall for 9.875.  This is going very well for UCLA on beam so far, and with presumably EHH and Peszek to go, they should get at least one hit from that group.  Disappointment on floor, but there's an opportunity to recover here.

Hopfner-Hibbs goes 9.925, so UCLA will not be counting a fall, and if Peszek can erase Frattone's score, this could be a huge score out of nowhere.  If only they had hit floor... (Interesting that Courtney has not competed beam or floor.  Hopefully the hamstring is not acting up again.)

Peszek hits as well for 9.925 capping a humungous beam rotation for UCLA of 49.550 to give them a total of 196.675, which is a great improvement over last week overall but could have been really tremendous if not for counting a fall on floor.  A hit on floor would have put them well over 197.  Still, maybe Val won't be as upset as last week after hitting beam so well to end the meet.

Peszek wins the AA again with 39.450, and Cal finishes with 192.550 which is an improvement over last week.