Slow start costly for UF gymnastics

It was over before it was over.

Georgia celebrated a fourth straight NCAA gymnastics championship with four teams still waiting to tackle their final apparatus.

For Florida, it was over long before the Bulldog celebration.

In fact, it may have been over as soon as the draw was announced for the Super Six. The Gators, seeded second and confident this could be the year for the breakthrough national title, would start on bars. Georgia would start on the floor.

Floor, with the crowd at Stegman Coliseum roaring with every pass. And this wasn't your usual gymnnastics noise reverberating through the arena. This was louder than it has been for a Georgia basketball game since Jim Harrick was the coach.

“It wasn't ideal, that's for sure,” said UF gymnastics coach Rhonda Faehn. “But our athletes have to be mentally tough enough and focus.”

It was ideal for the Gym Dogs, who couldn't have asked for a better draw.

“We knew when we walked out there this is our arena, our house,” said UGA gymnast Katie Heenan. “We knew we had to get off to a good start.”

Florida needed a good start for a strong finish to matter. Didn't happen.

Florida's first gymnast up was its first one down, Maranda Smith missing on the high bar and falling to the ground. Even though her score wouldn't count, it set the early tone for the Gators. They finished bars down .425 to Georgia which is like giving up a 16-0 run to start a basketball game. Except that in gymnastics, there is no full-court press or three-run homer or pick-six.

You can only do so much. You can't force another team into mistakes, just hope for them.

By the time the Gators finished their next event — the beam — it was really over. Mediocre scores in two events won't win anybody a national title.

“When our first athlete fell, it was tough,” Faehn said. “Our athletes got a little bit tight on bars and we carried it over to beam.”

A wobble here, a bobble there. Extra steps on the landing. And just like that after a long season filled with highlights and high rankings, it was over.

There is a somewhat happy ending to the story. The Gator gymnasts regrouped during their bye between events and did well enough on the floor and vault to elevate themselves into fourth place.

Finishing fourth in the nation is certainly an achievement that is not to be dismissed with the same brush-off as a Music City Bowl win or an NIT final. But for this Florida team, which was ranked No. 1 at one point and came within the slimmest of margins of beating the champions earlier in the year, this was a season ending that tasted bitter.

“When you set your goals to win a national championship,” Faehn said, “anything less is a disappointment.”

Florida, like Georgia, finished before the other four teams in the Super Six and had to watch from the wings needing a collection of catastrophes to have any chance to win. The other teams competed and hoped against hope that something would go wrong for the Bulldogs on the beam.

But you don't win four straight championships with four seniors who choke. Instead, Georgia ended any dreams for second-place Utah and third-place Stanford by performing like champions in the event where it's easiest to mess up.

Two Georgia gymnasts would have to fall on the beam. None did. When Heenan finished up her 9.95 with a perfect landing, the place erupted. Courtney McCool, the final beam competitor for Georgia, could have sat on the beam and recited poetry and Georgia would still have won.

Instead, she turned in a 9.9.

That's what champions do. They don't always have to be at their best, they just have to be better than everyone else.

“It seemed to me there were a lot of teams that were just off,” said Georgia coach Suzanne Yoculan, who now has nine championships.

And that's not a place to be when you get to the biggest night of the season.