From my Gator Bait Magazine article
By Franz Beard
The situation called for perfection or whatever is next Sunday afternoon where a sellout crowd of 8,781 was shoehorned into the O-Dome and an ABC national television audience watched the biggest early-2022 gymnastics meet come down to Nya Reed and Trinity Thomas. This wasn’t national championship-on-the-line pressure but it was thick enough that it would have taken a chainsaw to cut through it.
It was one of those rare moments when a head coach discovers exactly what kind of team she has. It’s one thing to see a team in the gym every day, or like last week when second-ranked Florida blew the doors off three underwhelming opponents in a season-opening quad meet. It’s something else when the opponent is sixth-ranked Alabama, which has six NCAA championship banners hanging from Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa. It’s never an embarrassment to lose to the Crimson Tide, but this was anything but a vintage Florida performance.
With the exception of a 9.975 by Reed followed by a perfect 10 from Thomas on the first rotation vault, the Gators were hardly living up to the pre-meet hype. Florida had to take at least one score of 9.775 or less on every rotation. There were deductions for falls, near falls, bobbles and dismounts. The Gators turned in a 48.975 on bars and their normally powerhouse beam rotation needed a 9.90 by freshman Leanne Wong to salvage a 49.100. Those kind of scores on bars and beams are the source of a lot of lost gymnastics meets.
While the mistakes kept piling up for the Gators, Alabama wasn’t exactly turning in a championship-level performance, but Tammy Duckworth’s team made fewer mistakes and they were ever so close to walking out of the O-Dome with their first road win in Gainesville since 2003. When Luisa Blanco closed out a brilliant day at the office (9.925 bars, 9.900 floor and 9.950 beam) the Crimson Tide had a .350 lead, which probably seemed insurmountable. About the only thing standing in Alabama’s way of scoring a huge win that would send ripples through the collegiate gymnastics world was for Reed and Thomas to close out the meet the way they finished on the vault.
But, that’s exactly what they did as the Gators rallied to a 197.000-196.925 win that head coach Jenny Rowland called “the toughest 197 we’ve ever had to sweat out.”
You’ve probably heard the old adage that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place. While it isn’t necessarily true, it doesn’t happen very often. Back-to-back 10s at a gymnastics meet, especially when that’s almost what it will take to score a come-from-behind win? Let’s just say if you’re into wagering on such things, put your money on the lightning.
In the case of the Gators Sunday afternoon, Reed and Thomas were lightning bolts. Although they didn’t know exactly what kind of deficit the Gators needed to erase to come away with a win, they knew both had to score big.
Reed, whose 9.975 on the vault was a collegiate best in the event, went first. By the time she had completed her first tumbling run it was evident that this had the makings of a huge score as long as she didn’t overshoot a landing. She was a blur and then she exploded off the mat, so high that the crowd almost gasped in unison. It was scintillating. When she finished she was mobbed by teammates and the O-Dome crowd roared, then began a chant that was more of a demand from the judges.
They screamed, “10! 10! 10!”
Because Reed’s routine was both electric and without visible flaws, the judges could only comply with the crowd’s wishes. When the score was posted, the roar from the crowd was deafening.
Reed’s 10 only drew the Gators close but it would still take Thomas coming through with one of her patented icewater-in-the-veins clutch performances. But how much to tie? How much to win? Rowland didn’t know but Florida assistant Adrian Burde did. When the Gators are performing, Burde’s brain works like a calculator. He had the winning score down to the hundredths of a point.
“My brain doesn’t work like that but he [Burde] is always the person to come to and if you need to know what score we need at the moment,” Rowland said.
A 9.925 would have tied the score, but Thomas, already with the 10 on the vault, was following a 10, which only increased the degree of difficulty. Since the judges had a baseline of perfection from which to score, if Reed’s floor was a 10, then Thomas probably needed something even more flawless if that was even possible.
Two 10s in the same meet is a rarity. Three? It’s only happened once in Florida history, ironically at the O-Dome against Alabama. Alex McMurtry on bars, Bridget Sloan on beam and Kennedy Baker on floor were perfect that night in 2016.
Perfect back-to-back? Kristen Guise and Amy Myerson did it for the Gators back in 1996. When Bridget Sloan and Kytra Hunter did it in 2014, it gave the Gators a come-from-behind win over Georgia in the SEC Championships in Birmingham.
The pressure Sunday didn’t faze Thomas, who has had her share of perfection in a Florida leotard. An 18-time All-American, she isn’t a stranger to big moments. The focus it takes to score a perfect 10 requires requires completely zoning out the noise and neutralizing the pressure. Prior to Sunday, Thomas had a perfect score seven times – three each on floor and bars, one on beam. When she nailed her landing for a 10 on the vault, Thomas became only the third Florida gymnast – Sloan and McMurtry are the other two – and just the eleventh in NCAA history to complete the Gym Slam, which is at least one 10 on all four events.
When Reed’s score was posted, the roof nearly blew off the O-Dome. Thomas was caught up in the excitement momentarily. She wanted to join her teammates who encircled Reed, but thought better of it. Before going into her personal cone of silence to reduce the crowd noise and neutralize the electricity, Thomas thought about the conversations she’s been having with Reed about the possibility of one day going back-to-back perfect scores.
“I saw Nya’s 10 go up, and I was like, ‘This is it!’” Thomas said. “We’ve talked about going back-to-back 10s before forever, and today, literally right before we went, we said, ‘Let’s do it!’ and her 10 came up and I gasped, and I was like, ‘Ahhh, this is the moment!’”
In that moment, it’s almost like the O-Dome crowd anticipated what was about to happen. From the moment, Thomas made her way to the edge of the mat, there was real electricity in the air. When voice of the O-Dome Tom Collette announced her as the last competitor of the day, the crowd erupted louder than before.
As if she needed an adrenaline rush, Thomas got one. She responded with a brilliant effort, so flexible, a combination of grace and power. By the time she finished and Burde leapt high and punched a giant hole in the air, there was little doubt that Thomas had delivered a winning performance. Teammates danced and hugged. The crowd erupted even louder than before, almost blowing the roof off the O-Dome and in doing so, practically willing the judges to score another 10.
The 10 the judges awarded set off a celebration in the stands and on the mat. The only ones who weren’t celebrating were the Alabama Crimson Tide. They had come so close to breaking a long O-Dome losing streak only to see victory snatched away when only one, but two perfect tens would do.
www.wnd.com
