Freshman gymnast Bridget Sloan earns SEC Gymnast of the Week

No. 1 University of Florida’s freshman gymnast Bridget Sloan earned her second Southeastern Conference Gymnast of the Week honor after notching the nation’s top all-around total over the weekend. The then-No. 2 Florida Gators (8-2, 6-1 SEC) fell on the road against at then-No. 7 Utah (10-2-1, 4-1-1 Pac-12) despite earning the highest road score in the nation this season to conclude their regular-season schedule.

Despite the 198.125-197.875 loss, Sloan shared her fourth all-around season title with Utah’s sophomore Georgia Dabritz at 39.70, the nation’s third-highest score of the season and highest of the weekend. Sloan now shares the most season event titles with sophomore Kytra Hunter at 13: four all-around, bars & beam and one vault. Sloan was the first freshman to earn the SEC Gymnast of the Week award on Feb. 5 and also has four SEC Freshman of the Week accolades under her belt.

Kentucky’s sophomore Alexis Gross is the SEC Specialist of the Week and Georgia’s Brandie Jay is the freshman of the Week. This was the final weekly honor for the year as the 2013 regular season came to an end last weekend.

Sloan also took home her second consecutive balance beam title at 9.95, making it her fourth overall. Currently, Sloan stands in the top 20-rankings in four of the five events: No. 2 in both all-around (39.590) and beam (9.910) as well as shares No. 17 in vault (9.905). The freshman also shares first on bars with junior teammate Mackenzie Caquatto (9.945).

Florida is now focused on defending their conference title as the SEC Gymnastics Championships begin Saturday, March 23rd at the Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, Ark.  The SEC Championships consists of 2 four-team sessions, as eight teams will be competing. Teams ranked No. 5-8 will compete in the afternoon session (Session I) and teams ranked No. 1-4 will compete later on in the evening session (Session II). Scores from both sessions will be combined to conclude final teams and individual rankings.

The Gators will kick off competition in the second session of the night beginning at 7 p.m. against No. 3 Alabama, No. 5 Georgia and No. 6 LSU. At 3 p.m. Auburn, Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas will battle it out in the first session with Auburn leading as the top seed.

Friday evening before the competition begins, Auburn, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri will practice from 2:00 until 3:48 p.m. while Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and LSU will practice from 4:22 until 6:10 p.m.

The meet will air on ESPNU at 5:30 p.m. March 28th and on ESPN at 7 p.m. March 30th.

Gator Country reporter Elizabeth Rhodes can be reached at lizxxbeth@gators.ufl.edu.