Kentucky Gymnasts Ready to Make Noise at Nationals
The Kentucky gymnastics team will make its first appearance in the NCAA Gymnastics Championships this weekend. And while that is a huge accomplishment for this team and the program, the Cats are not satisfied with just making it to the national meet.
“It’s so amazing to be the first Kentucky team to make it, we’re all still on cloud nine about it,” said junior Sidney Dukes. “But we’re not done yet. We’ve still got something to prove at nationals, we have to prove that we deserve to be there.”
Kentucky head coach Tim Garrison echoes Dukes’ sentiments, and he knows what it will take to win a championship.
“We’re not satisfied with just making it to nationals,” Garrison said. “It’s a matter of competing our routines and being absolutely comfortable and confident in what we’re doing.”
Junior Alex Hyland knows that this Kentucky team has already made history, and that being together will make the upcoming weekend even more special.
“It’s an amazing accomplishment. Obviously, it’s never been done before,” Hyland said. “Tim (Garrison) said that we will always be able to say that we were the first team. It’s amazing that we could do that for our university. We’re really excited to go to nationals as a team. We get to experience the whole situation together.”
The championships will be held at Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis, Missouri, April 20-21. Kentucky is familiar with the Gateway city, having earned a fourth-place finish there, the highest finish in school history, at the SEC Championships in March.
There will be 12 teams competing for the national title in St. Louis, and half of those squads are from the SEC (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and LSU). The strength and depth of competing in such a powerful conference has Garrison’s team ready for the national meet.
“Half the national qualifiers are from our league,” Garrison said. “You’re grinding against tough people every weekend. Competing against tough competition every week absolutely prepares you for what we’re going to experience this weekend.”
Hyland agrees with her head coach.
“We always say that the SEC is the best conference in the nation,” she said. “There’s only 12 teams that make it to nationals, half of them are from the SEC. It’s great that we can represent our conference at the national level.”
Dukes hopes that the familiarity with the venue, as well as the opponents, can work to the Wildcats’ advantage.
“I feel that being at a neutral site will be in our advantage,” Dukes said. “Knowing some of the girls on other teams, knowing their routines, knowing what other teams are capable of, I feel like that’s a big advantage for us going in.”
The NCAA Championships have 12 teams competing in two, six-team meets on Friday. The top three from each meet will advance to Saturday’s Super Six national championship finals. Eighth-ranked Kentucky’s bracket features No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 4 Florida, No. 5 Utah, No. 9 California and No. 11 Washington.
While Kentucky may not be the “name brand” that some other schools are in gymnastics, Dukes knows that this group of Wildcats can change that line of thinking this weekend.
“I think that it’s going to be a really big breakout for Kentucky as a program,” Dukes said. “Gymnastics is all about perception and I do think this will help change the Kentucky perception.”
That’s a process that began with the 2018 Wildcats making the school’s first-ever appearance in the NCAA National Championships. And it’s a process that could take even more steps forward this weekend.
