Men’s team, Kayla Slechta set to compete at NCAA championships

This weekend the men’s gymnastics team heads to Columbus, Ohio, to compete in the NCAA championships. Though winning the outright title isn’t necessarily the expectation, the 8th-ranked Gopher’s shouldn’t be excluded from consideration.

“Winning the title would be hard to do,” head coach Mike Burns said. “But we are here and anything can happen.”

The championships begin Thursday and run through Saturday, and the country’s top 12 teams are split into two qualifying sessions, each of which contains six teams attempting to reach Friday’s team finals. Saturday is host to the individual championships.

The Gophers will participate in Thursday’s afternoon session, where they will vie against the likes of No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 4 Illinois, No. 5 Penn State, No. 9 Air Force and No. 12 UIC. To reach Friday’s finals, the team must finish in the session’s top three.

Individuals can also progress — even if the team doesn’t — by placing in the top three of a given event, a feat accomplished by nine Gophers at last year’s nationals. That said, Burns is focused on where Minnesota can finish collectively.

“Our goal is to make it to [Friday] as a team,” he said. “All our decisions are geared around how we can get the best team score and individuals are … the second priority.”

Senior Michael Paulus was stoic in his comments on the high stakes of his final weekend of collegiate gymnastics.

“I’m trying not to think about it,” he said. “Thinking about it doesn’t make you any more prepared, it’s not productive. Once the weekend’s over I’ll have time to look back.”

Under Burns, Minnesota has been to the team finals once before, in 2007. Overall, the Gophers have qualified for the NCAA championships 43 times.

Slechta is lone women’s representative

The women’s championships are also this weekend, but won’t include Minnesota as a team; the Gophers were knocked out at the NCAA regionals. Yet Minnesota’s maroon and gold will still make an appearance at nationals courtesy of Kayla Slechta.

Slechta qualified to compete at the national championships as an individual by placing fourth at regionals with her all-around performance.

Slechta, a second team All-Big Ten gymnast, will participate in all four events, though her best is the vault, women’s head coach Meg Stephenson said.

Finishing in the top-four of any of the events would give Slechta All-America honors, in addition to qualifying her for the finals. Gymnasts who place in the top-eight receive Second Team All-America standing, but do not advance.

“The fact that she’s here says a lot about her abilities,” Stephenson said. Add the fact that Slechta is just a freshman makes her progress is all the more impressive.

“I want to place on the podium,” Slechta said. “That’s my goal.”