There’s at least one more week of Arizona gymnastics coming up. The GymCats traveled to Tempe to take on Arizona State in Wednesday’s “play-in” meet for a chance to advance to one of the two second-round meets on Thursday. Wednesday’s meet starts at 2 p.m. MST and will stream on ESPN+.
There are still a lot of “what-ifs” and unknowns this week, but the team managed to make it to regionals as a group for the seventh straight season. Now, it’s time to win or go home.
On letting one get away
Arizona had climbed as high as No. 29 in the NQS rankings late in the season. They just needed to advance one more spot to get out of the play-in meet. It all came down to Big 12 Championships where the bars were their undoing. They fell back to No. 33, one spot behind ASU and firmly in the play-in.
“There was enough teams that messed up in front of us and below us that if we would have finished Big 12s, I think we would have scored out of there,” Arizona head coach John Court said. “They know that. I tell them the truth. This is the good and this is the not-so-good reality of what happened. And that was one of the realities of that.”
The GymCats have been in the play-in meet four times since the postseason format was changed. They have advanced to what used to be called the regional semifinals but is now called the second round three out of the four years. This time, there’s even more motivation.
The regional play-in will be an in-state matchup between Arizona and ASU. It will be the third time the two have competed this season. Arizona won in the regular season. ASU scored high enough in the early session at Big 12 Championships to leapfrog the GymCats for fourth place.
“I can deal with winning and I can deal with losing,” Court said. “I don’t want them to beat themselves. That’s what happened [at Big 12s].”
On individual qualifiers
If Arizona doesn’t beat ASU in the opening round, that doesn’t mean regionals is over for all the GymCats. Four have high enough NQS to earn spots in the second round as individual qualifiers.
Junior Abigayle Martin has qualified as an all-arounder, senior Emma Strom has a high enough score to compete on floor exercise, sophomore Jessa Janicke will go on vault, and junior Tirzah Wise qualified on balance beam. Court wasn’t thinking about that last week, though.
“Thursday’s not on my mind,” Court said. “It’s a ‘we’ sport. It’s a team sport. Even though I know that it’s kind of labeled as something different, individualized, I like the team aspect of it a little bit better. So we’re gonna go with that.”
On Big 12 awards
Last year, Elena Deets ended her fifth season as the Big 12 co-Event Specialist of the Year, earning her way into the Ring of Honor this season. Court was named Big 12 Coach of the Year. The GymCats had another individual award winner this season.
Senior Gianna ‘Gigi’ Lenczner is wrapping her senior season with a 4.0 GPA in accounting. The Big 12 honored her as the Big 12 Gymnastics Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
“Accounting is no joke,” Lenczner said. “There’s a lot of classes. They’re very intense, very exam heavy, but I’ve always been pretty motivated at school. I feel like when I was younger, my mom was really strict on gymnastics ends at a certain point. You have to have something else to back you up. So I’ve always been pretty motivated to do well in that. Also kind of a perfectionist, so striving for hundreds on everything was always kind of a goal.”
It’s an award Court has been waiting for.
“I’ve wanted that for her for three years,” he said. “I was gonna break something if she didn’t get it this year.”
Lenczner has stuck at Arizona for all four years despite having to retire from all events except beam due to a shoulder injury.
“I never wanted to be a beam specialist, but here we are,” she said. “I have always liked that beam is—kind of goes back to what I was talking about in school—being so perfect up there. That’s the thing you strive for, and so hitting a perfect beam routine is like a feeling that’s not like the other events, but something I’ve learned in college over the last two years is that I used to always want to do floor in college, it was like my dream, and it obviously didn’t work out with injuries.,,The performance is fun. And I’ve learned how to perform on beam, which is my favorite part. You can get up there and smile and show it off and do all those things that you do on floor, even though you’re on the beam. And it’s a little scary.”
The hardest part was giving up bars.
“Bars is my favorite event,” she said. “It still is my favorite event, but me and John have bought a little bit because I told him I refused to do gymnastics without bars, and here we are, but he convinced me to stay and just do beam…I had a unique routine. I got to do a dismount that no one here does anymore. The feeling of being able to hit perfect handstands and take those disks, that’s so fun to me. But I will say knowing that I’m kind of saving my body a little bit more definitely makes me a little bit happier, and I can sleep at night. But I miss it a lot, and I always wish I could compete.”
On Emma Strom’s ankle
Another senior is dealing with an injury that has put her status in a precarious position. Strom injured her ankle just before senior night. She wasn’t able to compete that night or at Big 12 Championships and has since posted on social media that she tore two ligaments. That doesn’t mean she’s automatically out this week.
“While this was not how I envisioned my Senior Night or final conference championship, one of our team mottos has always been ‘we over me,’” Strom posted. “That mindset has never meant more. This recovery is for them.”
Strom has been working hard both in recovery and in the gym. One of the biggest challenges is that her best event is the one that requires the most impacts on the lower extremities. She shines on floor exercise where she has a career high of 9.950 and scored 9.900 or better eight times this season.
“She lives over there in the training facility at football to get her ankle better,” Court said. “It’s not going to be because of lack of effort. It’s just going to be, hey, if it’s meant to be, then she’ll be able to go.”
In addition to Court’s optimism, Strom’s family believes she will be ready to fight through it when the time comes.
“She’s tough as nails! I bet you see her compete,” Strom’s mother Michele posted on social media.
About the Author
