CLEVELAND — Florida's gymnastics team played with danger one too many times. Florida survived an ugly balance beam rotation at the NCAA Regionals to advance to the NCAA Championships but couldn't do it again Friday as the Gators failed to advance to the Super Six, finishing fourth in its preliminary competition here at the Wolstein Center on the campus of Cleveland State with a 196.125.
Alabama won the session with a 197.05 followed by Nebraska (196.85) and Utah (196.2). Just missing the cut with the Gators were Oregon State (196.1) and Kent State (195.0).
The Oklahoma Sooners won the afternoon session with a 196.775 while Michigan was second with a 196.7, and UCLA was third (196.5) to grab the last qualifying spot in Saturday's Super Six. Arkansas and Georgia finished tied with 195.45 and Illinois was sixth with a 195.1.
"Obviously it s a disappointing result," Florida coach Rhonda Faehn said. "We must have had seven beam intrasquads since regionals and we didn't have one mistake or fall."
That wasn't the case Friday.
At regionals the Gators battled back from a 48.425 to snag a qualifying spot for the NCAA Championships by edging Boise State by just 0.025.
But Friday's competition was simply too good for the Gators to stage such a comeback at the NCAAs.
Florida had falls from Elizabeth Mahlich and Alaina Johnson to give the Gators just a 48.125, their lowest score on any event this year.
"It was a lessoned learned by me," Faehn said. "I probably shouldn't have had Elizabeth in that spot even though she hit in the intrasquads, I think it was in the back of her head and was tight and made mistakes. I should have switched that up."
The struggles on beam were similar to the ones Florida had last year, when the Gators hosted the championships and were heavy favorites but fell all the way to a disappointing fifth-place finish.
However, at least last year the Gators did well enough to advance to the Super Six. Friday's result gave the Gators the distinction of being the first Florida team since 2005 to fail to qualify for the Super Six.
"It's extremely disappointing," Faehn said. "But as I told the team, it takes more than talent to win championships."
Florida did have some individuals qualify for Sunday. Johnson qualified on the bars and on the vault along with King. King Maranda Smith and Johson all qualified on the floor.
