N.C. State will be the lowest seed present at this weekend’s NCAA Regionals in Athens, Ga., as the team competes in its 14th regional in the last 15 years.
If the Wolfpack place into either of the top two spots, they will be heading to the NCAA Championships for the first time since 1998.
“The first or second go on to the final round of the tournament,” coach Mark Stevenson said. “It’s sort of like men’s or women’s basketball that go through the first weekend -and we’re in our first weekend – only they have [three weekends] and we have two.”
State has finished sixth in each of their last four regionals and is coming off a second place finish at the EAGL Championships with a team score of 195.075 on March 25.
“I think that the odds-on favorite to win the competition is the University of Georgia. They’re ranked No. 1 in the nation and they were national champions last year,” Stevenson said. “I think the two-spot is open to anyone who wants to step up and take it.”
For the Pack to claim the coveted second place, they will need another performance like the one sophomore Leigha Hancock had in the EAGL Championships, when she became the first State gymnast to win the vault title with a score of 9.9.
“Leigha has really upped her gymnastics level from a year ago drastically,” Stevenson said.
Hancock hails from Suffield, Conn. and was the first State gymnast to win an EAGL event since 2002.
“I’m going to try [to repeat] but I’m not even sure what I did,” Hancock said. “The vault hadn’t been too good for me this year but it finally clicked for me that meet.”
The team went through simulated competitions this week during practice and focused on making clean dismounts.
“We’re just working on our landings a lot more,” sophomore Heather Zolton said. “We’re trying to stick them and not take so many steps because that will help our score a lot more at regionals.”
Zolton, a Florida native, was named to the All-EAGL second team. Her coach echoed the sentiment concerning the attention to detail heading into the year’s most important meet.
“We’re just looking for good landings, better form – we already know we can do our routines and we know we can do the skills that we’re doing,” Stevenson said.
“Now we just have to emphasize tight handstands, legs not bent, pointed toes, sticking the landings – those are the kind of things we’re looking for.”
For the lone two seniors on the team, this weekend marks a chance to either extend their career or end it.
“Its the last chance to go out – because this may happen to be your last meet it makes you want to give it your all,” senior and first-team All-EAGL performer Kylah Bachman said. “It’s my last chance to do an awesome job.”
