On Senior Night in the O’Connell Center, a freshman stole the show for the Gators.
In the team’s regular-season finale, Marissa King won her second-consecutive all-around title with a season best 39.575 to lead No. 5 Florida (9-2, 5-1 Southeastern Conference) to a 197.55-196.5 win over Utah, tying the season-high total the team posted two weeks ago against North Carolina and Ball State.
“I decided to be a bit greedy,” King said of her performance.
She scored a 9.9 on her first three events (vault, bars and beam), all of which coach Rhonda Faehn said were among King’s best-preformed routines of the season.
“It just feels like everything to do with college gymnastics… is actually finally just coming together and getting in my head,” King said.
It couldn’t have come at a better time for the Gators, who head into next week’s SEC Championships coming off two of their best outings of the year.
But things weren’t just clicking for King on Friday.
On bars, the Gators scored a season-high 49.525, the first five routines by Florida’s gymnasts set or tied collegiate bests on the event.
“It was almost automatic, like it was icing on the cake,” Faehn said. “When everybody does that it’s almost kind of silly, because you don’t expect everybody to do amazing. You expect one or two or three girls and then a couple of good ones. But for everyone to do it, we kind of look at each other and laugh a little bit.”
Among the gymnasts who scored a collegiate best was Amanda Castillo, who registered a 9.95 in her final home meet in the O’Connell Center. It was a routine that Faehn described as one of the best of Castillo’s career at Florida.
