Maryland gymnastics earned its 27th NCAA tournament berth Monday. The unseeded Terps are in the Gainesville Regional and will take on fifth-seeded Utah, 12-seed Michigan State and Towson. The top two teams in the field move on to the regional final.
“We’ve just been killing it and doing so great,” sophomore Taylor Rech said. “We just have to go in, give it our all and really just do what we know how to do.”
Maryland ended the regular season strong with an 18-5 record in March. Coach Brett Nelligan’s team most recently finished fifth in the Big Ten championships and tallied its highest mark in tournament history, a 196.775, to lead the morning session.
The Terps established themselves across all four events this season.
[Maryland gymnastics places program-best fifth with record 196.775 at Big Ten championships]
Maddie Komoroski racked up three 9.925s on beam with precise technique. Alexa Rothenbuescher averaged a 9.904 on floor, displaying explosive tumbling skills. Rhea Leblanc led the team with a 9.810 average on bars. Freshman Natalie Martin tied a program-best 9.950 on beam and averaged 9.854 on vault.
“The team is absolutely thrilled with our success,” Martin said. “I feel like we could easily take any of these teams.”
Martin, along with Rothenbuescher and Komoroski, were named to the All-Big Ten second team.
The Terps will face a tough group of gymnasts in Gainesville. Utah’s Grace McCallum, a 2020 Olympic silver medalist, excelled in the all-around this year and led the Utes to their fourth-straight Pac-12 championship. Nelligan’s squad is also facing the Big Ten champions in Michigan State.
“We couldn’t be more excited to go to Gainesville,” Nelligan said. “Our job is to go down there and do really high quality, aggressive and confident gymnastics.”
