Utah State gymnastics earns invitation to NCAA Regionals

The Utah State women’s gymnastics has earned an invitation to the NCAA Regional Championships. The team will travel to compete as the fourth seed in the Seattle Regional on April 1.

Utah State qualified with an Regional Qualifying Score of 195.915.

“We’re really excited to go back to regionals again,” senior Katie Brown said. “Staying out west and going to Seattle is really awesome. We’re excited that some of our fans are going to get to drive up or fly up, and be there to support us.”

Joining Utah State at the Seattle Regional is Oklahoma, ranked number one in the nation, along with the second and third seeds, Kentucky and Washington, respectively. Stanford and BYU round out the six teams competing in the event.

The top two teams in the meet will advance onto nationals to compete in a semifinal with the top two teams from both the Champaign and Fayateville regionals.

“We started off at regionals (Arkansas in 2014) my freshman year,” senior Bailey McIntire said. “It was a rough experience for us, but every year we’ve gotten better and better. This year, we’ve been comfortable the whole year, so we’re just going into it like another meet.”

The Aggies will be seeing BYU for the fourth time this season, with Utah State claiming victory in the past three meetings.

“We’re excited to go up against BYU again,” Brown said. “We’ve gone against them three times this year, so what’s one more?”

This is the fourth straight year the Aggies have qualified for regionals, though they have not yet qualified for nationals. Last season, the Aggies finished fifth in the Salt Lake City Regional with a 195.025.

“This year at regionals, we’re just hoping to make a mark on the NCAA and letting them know we’re a pretty legitimate program now and we can get back to where we can go to nationals soon,” senior Keri Peel said. “I’m really excited about the group that we’re in.”