By Caroline Medley In the SEC, the 2016 graduating class left a number of large holes that demand to be filled across the board. With incoming freshmen, in addition to some upperclassmen who may be able to step up, all of these holes can be filled. But some will be more difficult to fill than others. Over the coming weeks, we'll analyze each of the teams in the big four conferences, taking a look at their potential lineups, incoming freshmen and holes left by graduating seniors and transfers. View potential lineups for each team on each event here. Alabama theoretically should have no problem bouncing back to the same success it enjoyed in 2016. It only lost two seniors, but both were key members of the team — all-arounder Lauren Beers and floor powerhouse Carley Sims. Luckily, the Tide have a lot of powerful upperclassmen who can step into the gaps, as well as some fantastic freshmen coming in to help out. On vault, the Tide loses Beers’ Yurchenko 1.5, but that’s it. They still have Katie Bailey, Mackenzie Brannan, Jenna Bressette and Nickie Guerrero capable of 10.0 start value vaults, and they’re gaining Madison Desch, who could potentially do a Yurchenko double full — though don’t expect it right out of the gate. It’s likely she’ll start out with just a full but may work her way up to a 1.5 or double by the end of the season. Alabama also has two nice Yurchenko fulls in Kiana Winston and Keely McNeer, as well as Shea Mahoney and Wynter Childers coming in as freshmen, so it’s not likely vault will be an issue.
routine was actually rather complex before she retired, competing a Jaeger and a number of Tkachev variations, as well as a pak salto and a full-in dismount, so watch out for her in the Tide bar lineup. Beam is where it starts to get tricky. Alabama had lots of exploration of depth on beam last year, even pulling out Mary Lillian Sanders, who rarely competed before 2016, toward the end of the season. This year, the Tide may not be so blessed. Most of their lineup is still intact, but beam is not the specialty of any of their incoming freshmen, nor is it an apparatus where an upperclassman who hasn’t done beam in the past is likely to step up. At this point, to replace Beers, again the best bet is Desch who has a myriad of skills she could put together for an NCAA beam routine. The big change she’ll have to make is focusing on what skills she’s cleanest on, rather than what boosts her difficulty. This will become a theme as we continue to discuss all the elites joining the NCAA. Watch out for key upperclassmen on beam, though, such as Aja Sims, Nickie Guerrero and Keely McNeer. They’ll decide whether Alabama can continue to be a beam team to watch.
whole lot of sass, so definitely look for her to sneak into the Alabama lineup. Also watch for upperclassmen Angelina Giancroce and Ariana Guerra to start pulling more weight. Both made the floor lineups on a few occasions last season, but their team will need them more now that they’ve lost two key floor routines.
Stay tuned for the next installment of the potential lineup series: Arkansas. * As of August 20, sophomore Avery Rickett no longer appears on the Alabama roster.
1 Comment
chris summers
10/6/2016 12:43:35 am
Apparently you are not aware of Wynter Childers resume on Beam. She won the Nastia Cup Beam title as well as having 2 National Championship Titles on beam. Both of these titles coming in the last 2 JO seasons. Level 10 National Beam Champion in both 2015 and 2016. How you can ignore her as a Beam specialist is beyond me. Yes she is known for her outstanding performance capability on Floor but to ignore her Beam where she has more championship titles is short sighted.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Days until the 2017 National ChampionshipsArchives
July 2017
|