Alabama Gymnastics' Season Ends at NCAAs, Graber and Blanco Win Individual National Championships

Alabama finished third in the evening session of the NCAA semi-finals and will not advance to Saturday's national championship

A strong final push on floor exercise was not enough for Alabama gymnastics to advance to the finals of the national championship, ending the 2021 season for the Crimson Tide Friday night in Fort Worth. 

Alabama gymnastics was in last place heading into the final rotation of the second session of the NCAA championships and used outstanding floor performances from Luisa Blanco and Lexi Graber to put the Tide in the position to finish in the top two with a 49.5875 team total on floor.

Alabama coach Dana Duckworth often says that you have to fight for every tenth and half a tenth on every routine, and it came down to that tonight. The Crimson Tide was .025 away from securing a spot in the championship finals. 

"To be where we are tonight by .025, it can be anyone's night, and that's what the championship's about," Duckworth said.

Alabama's deficit after the first three rotations proved too much to overcome as the team finished third in the standings with a 197.575 behind No. 2 Oklahoma's 198.0875 and No. 6 Utah's 197.600. Alabama finished ahead of No. 3 LSU for the third time this year as the Tigers posted a 197.5625. 

The 197.575 from Alabama would have been enough to advance out of the evening session, but in this format it is the top two teams from each separate session, not the four highest scores of the day. 

After falling on beam, Graber ended her senior season on a high note with a 9.9625 on floor to help bring Alabama within contention. The high score also gave Graber an individual national championship on floor exercise.

"It was just exciting to see Lexi go out that way," Duckworth said. "After she made a mistake, kid's a champion, and she went back and did her job the next event. Very proud to see that kind of comeback after her mistake." 

Graber is a senior, but has an extra year of eligibility she could use because of covid. She said she has not yet decided if she will use it or not. 

The Tide started the evening on the vault, which was a high point for Alabama at the SEC Championships. There were no major mistakes on vault, but the only gymnast to post above a 9.9 was the 9.925 from Shallon Olsen as Alabama posted a 49.2875. 

Once again, on the uneven bars there were no major mistakes; however, Alabama had to count four scores below 9.85 which is not quite good enough when going against some of the best teams in the country. 

Makarri Doggette and Blanco finished the rotation with a powerful punch earning a 9.925 and 9.9375 respectively which was enough to finish second and third on bars. 

While the season comes to an end for the team, Blanco's 9.9625 on balance beam was the highest score from any gymnast in either session which crowns her the 2021 individual national champion on the balance beam.

"As for winning that national championship, it's just fulfilling because you see that your hard work is paying off," Blanco said. 

Blanco said that in the moment she wasn't thinking about the individual accolades, but instead about how her team was doing. 

"We wanted to show everybody how hard we worked, and obviously things didn't work out as we wanted to but we weren't gonna give up," Blanco said. "We gave it everything we had those last two events, and I think it really showed."

Even though they came up short, the women on fire showed one final time their determination to fight and shine through the very last routine. 

"We're going to celebrate this season because they had every reason to keep their heads high," Duckworth said. "And they were stunning, at the last two events for sure."