For Bridget Sloan and the rest of the Florida gymnasts, the time for individual goals is over.
“I just want the best for this team right now,” Sloan said. “I guess regular season you can have those individual titles and stuff, but when it comes to postseason, man, it’s all about the team. I always say no one is really going to remember that I won all-around in 2013, but I will guarantee they will know which team won.”
No one has forgotten that Florida claimed its first NCAA Championship last year. With only one meet standing between the Gators and the 2014 Championship meet, Florida is focusing in on repeating that success.
“Some teams get a little bit ahead of themselves, they start looking past each completion and just look at the end,” Sloan said. “Well there are steps that you have to go through and we learned last year that if you do those steps correctly and in the right order, you can be very successful.”
The Gators are gearing up to step back onto the floor after having their first weekend off since the start of the season in January.
“This team, you know they really have started to sharpen up because we gave those few days of kind of taking it down a little bit after SECs and now it’s the build up,” coach Rhonda Faehn said.
With the first of three postseason appearances out of the way, Sloan said the team is transitioning into the necessary mindset.
“Rhonda always emphasizes for postseason: It’s really not about whether you’re going to make the routine or not because we know we’re going to make it,” she said. “It’s going to be about whether you want it, how bad you want it and how well you’re going to do it.”
Sloan said the week of straight practice was more about skills and details on vault and bars than full routines.
“Those were two events that we were so strong on last year, but this year it’s like we’re taking a little extra time getting in the swing of things on bars,” Sloan said. “We’re missing the landings on vault a little bit here and there. So we’ve really been focusing on just the littlest details. … They make the biggest difference.”
Faehn maintained that her team doesn’t really feel it has a target on its back, even with a No. 1 ranking heading into Regionals.
“Really use it again as a launching pad as a preparation to feel 100 percent secure with our lineups,” Faehn said. “I feel like right now the lineups are going to be identical if not extremely similar as we had at SECs.”
The Gators will be the only top-10 team competing when Penn State hosts the NCAA Regionals on Saturday. No. 12 Oregon State, No. 15 Penn State, No. 23 New Hampshire, No. 29 Kentucky and No. 36 Maryland will all be competing with Florida for a top-two finish at Regionals. The top-two teams from each of the six regional sites move onto the NCAA Championship in Birmingham, Ala., from April 18-20.
“Because there’s a greater variety of schools that we haven’t seen all year long I think it’s a wonderful atmosphere,” Faehn said. “Our team, I know their sole focus is to go in there and compete aggressively and have a lot of energy and to kind of make that our own home environment.”
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Bridget Sloan performs a balance-beam routine during Florida’s 197.525-196.025 win against Arkansas on Feb. 14 in the O’Connell Center.
