No.12 Cal Women’s Gymnastics defeats No.24 Stanford in home opener

As expected, Cal Bears have defeated Stanford Cardinal in the Golden Bears’ home opener of the 2019 season.

Bears scored a 196.575 to increase their season best team score. This was the highest home opener team score in program history (which is rather ho-hum now with this program steadily breaking all the records every year).

There were some mistakes along the way, but the Bears were able to drop those scores. Bears in particular was able to bolster their beam lineup with several season high scores in that one event.

The Pac-12 Network broadcast revealed that Cal’s Toni-Ann Williams had an offseason arm injury and could not start training until late November. This just means that there are rooms for further improvement in the team score, from not just the freshmen but also the vets.

ROLL ON YOU BEARS!

Since the California Golden Bears Women’s Gymnastics squad is hosting rival Stanford tonight from Haas. We give you this quick preview and open thread for those who wants to discuss this first televised meet on the Pac-12 Network. With Twitter being such a nice platform to show college gymnastics routines, I will try my best to put those in the comments for your viewing pleasures.

12th Ranked Golden Bears were the preseason 8th ranked squad. With 5 freshmen ready to contribute (4 of them have already played important roles), Cal has a nice combination of youth and experience, led by 4 seniors, including 2016 Jamaican Calympian Toni-Ann Williams. Cal has made it to the NCAA championships as a team for 2 of the past 3 seasons. Even with the NCAA field being narrowed down from 12 to 8 in 2019 (and the final “Super Six” will be “Four on the Floor”), Cal still has high hope of being back to that final session of the season.

Bears opened the year at No.3 LSU. Last week, Bears shared the floor with top ranked and defending NCAA champs UCLA down in Anaheim (where UCLA got the viral floor performance). Bears improved their team total from 195.650 to 196.075.

Since the season is still in the early stages, Bears will slow ramp up their routine difficulties. For reference, Bears put up a season best team total of 197.500 in the huge upset win over Utah. Bears at the NCAA championships had a team total of 196.500, which was 9th best out of the 12 teams there.

So far on the young season, co-head coaches, the Howells, have spread the routines across the board to all the talented Golden Bears gymnasts. Expect to see some of your old favorites (Toni-Ann Williams, last year’s freshman star in Kyana George) and learn to love the new Bears from this home open today.

24th ranked Stanford Cardinal should post no threat to upset the Bears, barring multiple misses by the Bears in an event - only the top 5 of 6 routines in each event will count for the team total. Cardinal scored 195.175 and 194.650 in their first two meets of the season.

Cal Bears vs. Stanford Cardinal

Where: Haas Pavilion (Berkeley, CA)

When: 6 pm PT

TV: Pac-12 Network

GO BEARS! BEAT STANFORD!