ECAC-East Regional Preview

The ECAC - East Regional Championships will be hosted in Helfferich Hall on the campus of Ursinus College - Collegeville, PA on Saturday March 9th at 1:00 pm. These year's championships promise to be closer than ever. The Bombers of Ithaca College are the defending champions and they have an impressive record at these championships, having won 8 times since 1990 and 4 out of the last 5 years. Springfield College took the title in 1999, Rhode Island College in 1996 and SUNY-Cortland in 1991 and 1992. There have been no other team champions, but the host Ursinus Bears will be looking to change that. The current NCGA rankings have the teams lined up as follows: Ithaca 183.7125, Cortland 182.90, Ursinus 182.7313 and Springfield 182.3125. It should be a four team meet for the title even though SUNY-Brockport has an outside shot with a young team and a current SAS of 178.825. The top teams are all within 1.4 of each other, but the SAS is a bit deceiving. Ithaca, Cortland and Springfield all have one meet counting on their SAS in which they were grossly overscored by 3 or 4 points higher than their second best score. If you take those scores away then Ursinus becomes the team to beat and Brockport is not as far away as the current rankings may show. Taking into consideration that Ursinus is hosting and that they drew the best rotation (starting on a bye and competing vault, bars, beam, floor), you would have to say that they have the slight advantage. Springfield drew vault first and that rotation is also great for the Pride. Ithaca will begin on bars and Cortland on floor in the second rotation after a first round bye. Brockport's strong beam team will be put to the test early as they will begin on beam. One thing that is sure about any sport is that anything can happen on any given day, so we'll have to wait and see how this meet plays out. Another thing to keep in mind is that the results of this meet will count 60% towards the qualifying score for the Nationals Championships. The other 40% will come from the current SAS. This formula will affect the individual qualifiers to Nationals much more than the team.

As close as the top teams are, so are the top all-arounders coming into this meet. The top 5 all-arounders are all from different teams and they are all within two tenths of each other. Two seniors are amid a bunch of new faces. Seniors Jumaah Johnson - Ursinus and Jocelyn Genoa - Ithaca are 1-2 followed by MIT's first-year student-athlete Merritt Tam and a couple of sophomores, from Cortland - Danin Squires and from Brockport - Carrie Santore. The two-time defending all-around champion Sajdah Amhad did not return with the Rhode Island College squad, so there will be a brand new champion this year. The sleepers in the group are Kristen Grimmel from Ursinus who did not compete all-around enough times to show up in the rankings, but has three scores better than 36.9 and MIT's Ashley Rothenberg who has posted an all-around as high as 37.35.

The individual events will also be hotly contested as some of the top individuals in the nation will be at this competition. Kristen Grimmel and Jennifer Fouse from Ursinus are 1-2 in the NCGA on vault and last year's champion Gina Gutierrez from Springfield cannot be counted out. Genoa and Johnson are running 2-3 on the national bars rankings with Jessica Cowden from Ursinus currently ranked fourth. The top three beam workers so far in the nation will also be battling it out. They include Squires and Janelle Domaradzki from Cortland and Merritt Tam from MIT and on floor we have a couple of Ithaca gymnasts in Leslie Gelatt and Rachel Edelson sandwiched around Gina Gutierrez from Springfield. On each of the events, the next 5 to 10 gymnasts are all within stricking distance, so this is not going to be a meet in which only the current leaders are considered. Expectations and excitment are running high. If you are anywhere near Collegeville, PA, this is a meet that you don't want to miss.