The Terrapins gymnastics team competed for the last time Saturday as a group at the Big Ten Championships. The Terps had a chance to score their way into an NCAA regional but came up short, failing to advance to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2008.
Monday, though, three Terps learned their seasons weren’t over. Senior Kathy Tang, sophomore Abbie Epperson and freshman Macey Roberts qualified to compete as event specialists at the Athens Regional on April 2.
“Right after the meet, [the coaches] started looking at some of the rankings and trying to figure out who we thought was going to go,” coach Brett Nelligan said.
They didn’t tell the gymnasts their findings, however, leaving most of the team watching the NCAA Selection Show live in Nelligan’s office Monday afternoon.
“I had no clue,” said Roberts, who qualified on floor. “I honestly didn’t think I made it, and then my name popped up and I was so excited.”
Roberts had the team’s highest floor score with a 9.90. Tang’s season highs on vault and floor are a 9.90 and a 9.875, both tying her career-best marks. And Epperson’s season average of 9.81 on bars is the team’s best mark on any event.
While Roberts was happy to have her freshman year extended, for Tang, it means she gets to continue her gymnastics career. Though the senior still wishes her team had earned one of the 36 regional berths this year, Tang’s glad to have qualified on vault and floor, the latter of which she didn’t expect to get a chance to perform on again.
Plus, she said she knows the team will be behind her, even though not all of them will be there with her in Athens, Georgia. It will be the first time in seven seasons under Nelligan the whole team doesn’t travel to the regional.
“We’re disappointed, but right now we’re just going to focus on the three individuals that did make it and try to have the best showing we can while we’re there,” Nelligan said.
Epperson will compete on bars, in which Tang is an alternate. The Terps have the alternate spots on all four events: sophomores Dominiquea Trotter (vault) and Evelyn Nee (beam) and junior Emily Brauckmuller (floor). But unless one of the two qualifiers on an event is unable to compete, the alternates won’t travel to Athens.
Nelligan said there will be some extra emphasis on the events the gymnasts actually qualified for, but most of their practice schedule won’t change much ahead of the regional. Throughout the season, he said, team members train on events they won’t be competing on in upcoming meets, which will continue through the team’s final practices.
But that might not be as true for Tang, who knows she has performed her final beam routine as a Terp. Though she would’ve liked to perform in the all-around, she sees some positives in not having to get up onto the balance beam again.
“That may be a little less pressure,” Tang said. “And I can put all my work and focus into the other three events. Those are my favorite anyway.”
The NCAA Tournament will mark her final chance to don the Terps red and black in a meet. But for the two underclassmen, it will be chance to build for the future.
“This is going to be some great experience for them that they can bring back and share with the rest of the team and get us right back on track next year,” Nelligan said.
