NCAA Announces Women¹s Gymnastics Regional Selections

The top-ranked and SEC Champion Georgia Gym Dogs learned on Monday the five teams that will travel to Athens on April 8 for the NCAA Southeast Regional competition.

Joining Georgia in the race for a national title will be No. 12 Nebraska, No. 13 Missouri, No. 22 West Virginia, No. 23 North Carolina and N.C. State. The top two teams from Georgia¹s regional, as well as five other sites around the country, will advance to the NCAA Championships on April 20-22 in Corvallis, Ore.

The NCAA also announced on Monday that all No. 1 seeds, including Georgia, will open their respective meets on the floor exercise. Georgia will begin its order of events on floor, followed by vault, then a bye, the uneven bars, balance beam, and finally a second bye. The Gym Dogs ended the recent SEC Championships on a bye rotation.

Tickets for the regional are available through Georgia¹s official website, georgiadogs.com. Prices are $12 for adults and $8 for youth.

Georgia (21-0) has won 17 NCAA regional titles under head coach Suzanne Yoculan, including the last time the Gym Dogs hosted this event in 2003.

³I¹m excited that we¹ll get two teams in the Coliseum that are not in Athens on a regular basis in Nebraska and Missouri,² said Yoculan. ³In fact, Nebraska is the only team that was in this year¹s pre-season top 10 that we haven¹t seen.

³At this point of the year the (event rotation) draw really doesn¹t matter to us. We¹re confident with any rotation order, but we are excited to start off on the floor in front of our home crowd. That¹s an event where the fans can really make a difference,² Yoculan said.

The Southeast Regional will also include several event specialists from the region whose teams did not qualify for the post-season. Those gymnasts include Christina Ghani, Christina Lindo and Deceila Willacy of Towson, Angela Ferg, Rachel Colon, Alex Gatch and Angela Ferg of Maryland, Kristen Simpson, Erin Aiken and Jess Guilbert of George Washington and Stevie Waldman, Jess Randall and Brittany Gibbs of William and Mary.

Of Georgia¹s 21 victories this year, 19 have been over teams ranked in the top-20 and 11 were against teams in the nation¹s top-10. The Gym Dogs have won each of the previous five NCAA regional competitions they entered with an undefeated record.

Gymnastics action on April 8 in Stegeman Coliseum will begin at 6 p.m.