No. 21 Kentucky Tuscaloosa Bound for NCAA Regionals
Share
LEXINGTON, Ky. – For a school-record 12th-consecutive year, No. 21 Kentucky gymnastics is headed to the NCAA Regionals, with a trip to Tuscaloosa, Alabama awaiting the fourth-seeded Wildcats, as the team will compete in the Tuscaloosa Regional on the campus of the University of Alabama on April 2 at a time yet to be announced.
“We love our seeding headed into Regionals,” said head coach Tim Garrison on the Wildcats future destination “We don’t have to travel half way across the country to go compete. We get to stay in the SEC and we’re excited about the turnout – they’re going to have a great support system and a bunch of fans, they always do down at Alabama. We’re really excited about it.”
Kentucky is seeing unprecedented success this season, improving last weekend on its school-record regional qualifying score (196.205) after posting its best score ever at the Southeastern Conference gymnastics championship on Saturday with a 196.25.
The Wildcats will face Alabama, California, Boise State, West Virginia and Bowling Green in the six-team pod.
Kentucky has seen its largest improvement on balance beam this season, also setting a new Kentucky record for regional qualifying score on the apparatus with a 49.13, tied for No. 20 in the country. Kentucky’s next closest RQS on balance was set in 2013, when the team put up a 49.07 for the season. The Wildcats have been led on the rotation by freshmen Sidney Dukes and Alex Hyland, who both garnered All-SEC and SEC All-Freshman team honors, after each scoring a 9.9 on the apparatus in the first session of the SEC championship.
Dukes was also named to the All-SEC team and SEC All-Freshman team after posting a 39.4 in all-around. It marked a new career-best and was the second best all-around score in the first session of the SEC championship behind All-American Brandie Jay from Georgia.
For complete news and updates on the Kentucky Gymnastics program, go to UKathletics.com. Breaking news, behind-the-scenes updates and more can be found on Twitter at @UKGymnastics and Facebook at Facebook.com/UKGymnastics.
