NCAA Gymnastic Champions Tweets: Greetings from Forth Worth, Texas

The NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships are underway in Forth Worth, Texas, which is not where we actually are. But, even though some local folks may be more interested in the Assassination City Roller Derby match in Dallas, Tex., given that no Texas Superconference school has a women's gymnastics program, we thought we'd post some tweets from some of the participating schools.

We are going with an image of former North Carolina State Wolfpack gymnast Ashley Shepard to show neutrality as the school did qualify at regionals for the championships, and we wanted to go with an image of Cam the Ram, the mascot for Colorado State University, as well. But, since Colorado State doesn't even have a gymnastics team, we figured none of our blog-readers would be amused.

Here are the tweets (Note: Some schools have gymnasts competing individually even though their teams did not qualify):

1) Kentucky Gymnastics: NCAA gym warmups are underway! Sydney Waltz will compete in Stanford's rotation of bye, bars, beam, bye, floor, vault.

2) Florida Gators Gymnastics: Gator senior Rachel Spicer returns to Texas as NCAA Championships cap emotional senior year.

3) Samantha Peszeck: It's game time Bruins, lezzzgoooo

4) LSU Gymnastics: LSU competes for a spot in the Super Six in NCAA Semifinal II.

5) NC State Gymnastics: Brittni Watkins and Michaela Jayne ready to go!

6) WVU Gymnastics: Congratulations, Jaida Lawrence to co-Big 12 Scholar-Athlete of the Week!

7) CSU Cam the Ram: Happy Friday, Rams! Hope that rain jacket is green and gold! (The tweet actually featured a sheep wearing a raincoat!)

8) UCLA Gymnastics: All gymnasts master difficult skills. Danusia Francis likes to invent new ones.

9) Urban Dictionary: Hater_ A person that simply cannot be happy for another person's success.

Women's College Gymnastics News and Rankings: Oklahoma is Numero Uno

Greetings to our blog readers in South Korea, India and Chile.

Erica Brewer (pictured above) was named Big 12 Gymnast of the Week, and her Sooners teammate Lara Albright was named the conference specialist of the week following Oklahoma U's win over Big 12 rival Iowa State. The Sooners, a team which has never won a NCAA title in women's gymnastics but come close on several occasions, is also ranked number one nationally.

Here are the other major conference Gymnasts of the Week:

1) SEC: Bridget Sloan (Florida)

2) Big 10: Joanna Sampson (Michigan)

3) Pac 12: Olivia Courtney (UCLA)

Other gymnasts to look for on top ten teams include Rheagan Courville and Jessie Jordan of LSU, Kytra Hunter of Florida, Danuisca Francis of UCLA and Georgia Dabrist (Utah).

Here is the current top ten in the sport, with a look at their respective weekend meets, (all times given are eastern time):

1. Oklahoma 197.188 (@ Ariz. #17 on Sat. at 6:00 p.m.)

2. LSU 197.038 (Hosts Arkansas #14 on Fri at 8:00 p.m.

3. Florida 196.863 (Hosts Georgia #6 on Friday at 7:00 p.m.; last week's meet with Auburn will be televised on ESPN-U on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.)

4. Utah 196. 763 (Hosts UCLA #8 on Sat. @ 9:30 p.m.)

5. Michigan 196.663 (Hosts Ohio State #23 on Sat. @ 4:00 p.m.)

6. Georgia 196.608 (see Florida)

7. Alabama 196.600 (Hosts #10 Arkansas on Fri @ 8:30 p.m.)

8. UCLA 196.525 (see Utah)

9. Nebraska 196.438 (@ Iowa Fri, 8:00 p.m.)

10. Arkansas (see Alabama)

http://www.collegegymfans.com

College Volleyball Notebook: The NCAA Tournament is Underway (4 to Watch)

Michigan and LSU have a lot in common: The schools are from major conferences, they have similar team colors and both have solid women's volleyball programs. On Friday, Michigan which includes stand-out Canadian middle blocker Jennifer Cross (pictured top, wearing number two), and LSU, a team that features exceptional middle blocker Briana Holman (pictured bottom, wearing number 13) face each other in Seattle, where the national championship game will ultimately be played.

Here is a run down of four worthy games in the field of 64; all of these matches will be played on Friday (all times are eastern):

1. Michigan vs. LSU. Seattle. 8:00 p.m.

2. Creighton vs. Arkansas Lawrence, Kansas. 5:00 p.m. (on Espn3)

3. Oregon vs. Miami (Fla). Lincoln, Nebraska. 5:30 p.m.

The Oregon Ducks feature stand-out Liz Brenner; The Miami (Fla) Hurricanes' roster includes all-ACC team member Savanah Leaf.

4. Louisville vs. Marquette. Champaign, Illinois. 5:30 p.m.

The Cardinals feature Emily Juhl, the American Athletic Conference Player of the Year.

For more tourney games, go to our sister blog http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

http://www.espn3.com


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Friday Night Tweets: Sports, Sports, Sports....well, mostly college women's gymnastics

Since I may well be the one crossover NCAA Women's College Gymnastics fan who also happens to love Turkish soccer (I'm a Turkish-American), I want to start by mentioning that Istanbul powerhouse GalataSaray clubbed ElazigSpor, a team from Elazig, which is in eastern Turkey, by a 3-1 score thanks to two goal from Didier Drogba, the former Chelsea star and Ivory Coast national, and one goal by emerging Turkish superstar Burak Yilmaz, earlier today.

Now for the reason 97 percent of you are tuning in, here are some tweets that were generating in regard to the the first session of today's NCAA women's gymnastics championships being held on the campus of UCLA.

The college gymnasts pictured here are British Olympian Marissa King who competes for the Florida Gators (top) and Canadian Olympian Brittany Rogers who competes for the Georgia BullDogs/GymDawgs; both teams, along with the LSU Tigers, advanced today.

The two Big 10 schools in the first session: Illinois and Minnesota were both competing in their first national championships.


There are some other tweets regarding other sporting events, but they are not many, not many at all in fact!

Here we go:

1. @UIBaseball Iowa Baseball: "Tonight's game has been postponed due to rain. #Hawks play a double header with Penn State tomorrow starting at 1:05 CST."

2. Gators Gymnastics: "Gymnastics team advances to Super Six; Bridget Sloan is All-Around leader."

3. Illini Gymnastics @IlliniGym: "Florida, LSU, Georgia advance to Super Six #Illini women finish 5th in session with a 195.7, their highest team total ever."

4. MacKenzi Caquatto @MackMacko (a gymnast with Florida): "@AlexMorganVarga: Congrats to @MackMacko and the Gators for finishing first at NCAA Qualifying #ncaagym_ thank you. Good luck to y'all "

5. UCLA Gymnastics @uclagymnastics: "Session 1 #ncaawgym Finals: Florida-197.775, LSU 19.325, Georgia 197.150, Minnesota 196.375, Illinois 195.700, Stanford 194.700"

6. Minnesota Gymnastics @GophersWomensGym: "@KylaSledita recieves a 9.85 on vault and @JennyCovers gets a 9.825."

7. USA Water Polo @USAWP: "Also don't forget to mention our own Adam Kirkorian @WaterPoloCoachK will be live tweeting tonight's USC-UCLA matchup."

8. Chelsea Davis @Gymdogchels: "RT @ChelseaDfans: Congrats to Georgia #supersix! Thank you!!!

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NCAA Gymnastics Preview_ Kytra Hunter of Florida

The Florida Gators have been the proverbial bridesmaid but not the bride countless times in NCAA Women's Gymnastics, but since they are the number one team heading into the NCAA Championships in Gwinnett, Georgia, this weekend, this might well be the year they win it all.

One of the reasons for the team's success is an outstanding freshman named Kytra Hunter from Frederick, Md., a medium sized city known for its minor league baseball team the Frederick Keys, which is west of Baltimore and Washington, DC.

Hunter has a number of SEC honors for the 2012 gymnastics season, including being named SEC Freshman of the Week along with Jessie Jordan of LSU on Jan. 24 for an outstanding 39.475 all-around performance in a win over Kentucky. A week later, Hunter won the same honor again.

On Feb. 14, Hunter won the Freshman of the Week honor for a startling third time thanks to an impressive performance in a home meet win over LSU, a consistent gymnastics team in the SEC.

On Feb. 28, Hunter won her biggest honor of the season as she was named SEC Gymnast of the Week for her 39.675 performance in a victory over then third-ranked Georgia.

At the end of the regular season, Hunter was awarded All-SEC honors with fellow Gators gymnasts Marissa King, a stand-out gymnast from the United Kingdom, Alaina Johnson and Mackenzie Caquatto.