Silence. Tears. Hugs. With covered mouths and blank expressions, the Florida Gators gymnastics team struggled to process what happened. It was supposed to be a battle between two SEC titans, a colossal clash of championship-worthy teams. That was before everything changed.
Before sophomore Anya Pilgrim slipped from the uneven bars and slammed into the mats below. Before senior Sloane Blakley clutched her lower leg after an underrotated jump on her floor routine, glancing hopelessly toward her coaches and hopping into the tunnel without finishing her performance. Before her sister and fellow freshman gymnast, Skye, burst into tears, chasing after Sloane.
No. 5 Florida lost more than just a devastating match against No. 1 Oklahoma 198.075 - 196.625. It likely lost Blakely, one of its most consistent gymnasts across rotations, who reached perfection on the floor and won Co-SEC Specialist of the Week. Sloane had only returned to the mat last week after suffering a concussion during practice.
Blakely – draped in the white jacket that designates non-competing gymnasts from competing ones – eventually hobbled out of the tunnel in crutches. Her smile at her teammates wavered slightly as associate head coach Adrian Burde gathered her in his arms and looked at the floor with a grim expression.
For the Blakely sisters, a freak injury like this is scarily familiar. During this summer’s Team USA Olympic Trials, Skye ruptured her Achilles, ending her contention for a place in the eventual gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic Team. This time, though, she was on the other side of the mat, helplessly watching her sister.
While the Gators struggled across all of their rotations, Pilgrim’s injury during bars decimated Florida’s chances to win the meet (even before Sloane’s departure). Pilgrim, who competed in the Gators' first rotation, slipped from the highest bar during her transition between the two, landing hard on her back. She finished her routine, but left the competition afterward to be evaluated.
Her injury forced athletes like graduate Ellie Lazzari and freshman Ly Bui to perform in her place, but no one could replace Blakely and Pilgrim. On the beam, both Bui and senior Riley McCusker fell, and neither scored above 9.300. However, because McCusker’s score was worse, UF was forced to count Bui’s score of 9.250.
Due to Sloane Blakely’s injury on the floor, Florida was also forced to count freshman Taylor Clark’s 9.775 performance, where she stumbled on the landing of one of her jumps and looked generally unbalanced. However, it was a slight improvement over the 9.675 score she earned in the Auburn meet on Feb. 14.
Though senior Leanne Wong put up a decent batch of scores, she couldn’t repeat perfection. Her performance missed the sharpness and resoluteness of the last meet, and the score she received reflected that. Her 9.900 on the uneven bars marked her lowest since the Gators’ third meet against Georgia on Jan. 24.
However, when the Gators needed Wong to shine, she did. She and junior Selena Harris-Miranda finished the floor routines for Florida after Sloane’s injury, putting up 9.925 and 9.900, respectively, keeping the total team within .250 of Oklahoma. Similarly, on vault, the two kept the Gators afloat with the only two scores at or above 9.900.
The rest of the vault scores, however, were mediocre and full of small hops that cost the Gators points. In a meet that included an Oklahoma team fueled by a loss to No. 2 LSU and a perfect floor performance from junior Faith Torrez, UF never stood a chance.
Though far from the minds of Florida’s gymnasts, Missouri will visit Gainesville for a 5:45 p.m. meet next Friday.
Contact Liana Handler at lhandler@alligator.org. Follow her on X @handlerliana
Liana is the Gators gymnastic beat reporter for the Alligator and a junior sports journalism major. In her free time, she likes to play dominos and listen to Celia Cruz.
