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NCAA Week 6 Power Rankings

We've all been closely following those official RoadtoNationals.com rankings for the NCAA. So today, I thought I'd do something a little different.

I'm going to be doing power rankings. This isn't rankings based off of RQS or other fun data, but these rankings are based on news events, people that are gaining attention and other random things that I find interesting or worth mentioning.



# 1 Sophina DeJesus.

Sophina went viral. You gotta give her credit for that. In my book, anything that gives gymnastics, NCAA gymnastics more attention in general is good.  Mostly, because the NCAA gym teams compete for 12 weeks of the year every single year. The Olympics happen once every four years, the World Championships happen once a year with not a ton of meets leading up to either event. Sophina is free PR for a great sport and a good team. Plus, she's going to be on Ellen tomorrow. How many NCAA gymnasts who were not Olympians can say that?

# 2 Judges tightening their scoring practices.

It's a huge joke that some gymnastics conferences (or teams) have issues with over scoring, I'm looking at you, SEC!  Today, the Salt Lake Tribune had an article today devoted to the fact that Utah is super concerned about tight judging. You can read the whole article here.

In my opinion, yes, quite frankly, Utah should be concerned and so should everyone else for that matter. The post season is coming up quicker than expected and no, you can't control what the judges are going to do, whether it be grossly over or underscoring a routine. The only things that can be controlled are what you do. It's time to start making things a little cleaner. Clean up those flexed feet and those random leg separations

As for the judges, props for actually judging routines and not basing scores based on a leotard or school legacy. It's showing because there is some diversity in the rankings. Seriously, who thought that Boise State would be ranked # 9 or that Stanford and Denver would be separated by only .017.  Keep it up. We like diversity.

# 3 Boise State

Haay Boise State, you're ranked # 9 in the rankings thus far. Awesome job! But yeah, this team is a solid team, and if you look at their scores for the past five weeks, they all fall in the 196.250 - 196.500 range, That's consistency for you.

They are a fantastic bars team. They're currently ranked 7th in the NCAA on bars. It's well deserved. They are a beautiful bars team, fantastic lines, hit handstands, legs glued together, and nice difficulty.  Krystine Jacobsen is their top bar worker. Check out her routine in the playlist I pasted below.

# 4 Line-up changes

This week, LSU changed their line-ups around due to Lexie Priessman getting injured (it's time to wrap that girl in bubble wrap permanently). UCLA also changed their line-ups around since Hallie Mossett crahsed in warm-ups and so did Alabama (but for funsies, not because of injury). As a result of these changes, we got to see the depth these teams have and we got to see some really awesome athletes compete that hadn't had a chance to before. LSU put up Julia Cannamela at the meet against Georgia, who's been an exhibition but not in the actual line ups. She competed vault, bars and beam and she was one of the more consistent performers for LSU.

In the case of UCLA, because they're missing Katelyn Ohashi, they put a new face into the beam line-up. Nicki Shapiro. Sister of the glorious Samantha Shapiro, former national team member, Stanford gymnast with toe-point to die for. Nicki is just as glorious as her sister.  Oh praise ye gym gods. Nicki has beautiful toes and extension, like her big sis, and her beam routine was as smooth as a lake on a calm summer day. She got a 9.9 for her routine. Not bad for a freshman debut, on the BEAM.

And going back to Utah, since they readjusted line-ups to account for not having Kari Lee, they've been doing much better as far as I'm concerned. I don't mean this to be disparaging towards Kari in anyway, she is a lovely gymnast and she was and still is a big piece of the Utah puzzle. However, we got to see more of Samantha Partyka in the all-around and she's doing fabulously and Breanna Hughes is tied for 5th in the all-around individual rankings right now.  The old saying is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." However, with teams that have the depth and the talent to produce new and amazing things with a line-up tweak, maybe it's not a bad thing to "fix" it.

# 5 Sidney Dukes proving Eric Cartman wrong. Gingers DO have souls.

Sidney Dukes, the little freshman ginger from Kentucky, has been making waves for Kentucky and gaining a reputation as a phenom. In her first couple of meets with Kentucky, she won the all-around. Even though she didn't win the all-around at LSU, Sidney proved that she is more than capable of competing against top all-arounders, like Myia Hambrick and Brittany Rogers of Georgia. She's especially noteworthy because she's been such a solid competitor for Kentucky when their team is particularly freshmen heavy and has been ravaged by injuries.

Plus, I gotta love her as a fellow ginger myself. We're known for not having a soul (not true, South Park) or having a fiery temper and having super fair skin that burns at the thought of sunlight. So props to Sidney for showing that yes, gingers DO in fact have souls.

# 6 Elizabeth "Ebee" Price

Ebee is in her sophomore year at Stanford and she's been probably one of the more consistent performers for Stanford. Plus, she's currently ranked # 1 in the all-around ahead of Bridget Sloan.  Watching her is amazing. She not only performs beautiful, clean gymnastics, but difficult gymnastics. She goes out on to the competition floor, does her thing just like any other day. She's just all "oh, I got a 9.975 on bars? Oh okay, that's nice, NBD. Lalalala." Plus, she's smart as hell too. I believe she's studying bio-mechanical engineering, or something like that. I honestly also think she could be president one day. I'm very serious about that last part. Listen to her speak and watch her presence.

# 7 Allison Northey and the entire Washington team.

I've developed a fondness for Washington. They may not be Florida scoring outlandish 198's at home, but they deserve the same credit and attention. Their star, is senior Allison Northey. I love Allison Northey. She is much like Ebee Price, she goes out there, does her thing and she provides a lot of consistency and leadership to her team.

The weekend before last, Washington had a disaster of a home meet after scoring a 196 plus season high at Metroplex the previous weekend. This past weekend, they must have decided last weekend didn't happen. At Utah, they had another season high of 196.250. Allison Northey contributed a 9.9 on beam and a 9.925 on floor.

But Allison Northey isn't the only talent on that team. Malory Rose is the beam lead off and she mounts with a jump to splits on the beam. Joslyn Goings is another strong all-arounder. The weekend with the disaster of the home meet with the bars and beam splat fest, she hit all four events.

Here's a playlist of routines for Week 6



My week 6 recap for The Couch Gymnast NCAA 6th Week Recap

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