I think the fall from Lauren Marinez was the bigger issue than the OOBs, but Michigan was a mess in general. Their beam scores were lower than normal, Townsend fell on vault, etc. Given how close they were to qualifying and how many mistakes they had, you can't point to just one thing although the floor rotation overall was the biggest problem. I was really hoping Illinois would pull it out, as that would have been a great story to qualify unseeded.
I was at the Minneapolis regional, which was a good battle to qualify for nationals, although the scores might not look like it. Kentucky and Denver were trading 2nd place until the last rotation when Denver fell apart on beam while Kentucky nailed bars and that was the difference. Kentucky was in tears when they saw they had made it - it's the first time for them as a team and with the reduction down to only 8 teams next season, it will be a lot tougher for teams like them to make it in the future so I was really pulling for them to get it. The individual race was also really exciting, since we didn't know which of Denver or Kentucky was going to get in and they both had two top all-arounders and I was really pulling for Lexy Ramler to get one of the spots, which she did. Also, shout out to Meaghan Sievers of Iowa State, who had managed to beat Oklahoma's entire lineup on vault with a great handspring pike half to qualify for nationals. And I haven't even mentioned Oklahoma. I thought they looked the best they have all year on floor and after that, looked a little less sharp on the other events, which is fine. Don't want to waste it at regionals. Maggie was great on beam and floor, and Nicole Lehrmann's bar routine was also a highlight.