Kentucky’s gymnastics team wows Excite Night crowd with defeat of No. 10 LSU

A Rupp Arena crowd 10,558 strong came out to witness the 12th-ranked Kentucky gymnastics team’s annual Excite Night home opener on Friday evening. They didn’t leave disappointed.

Despite the fact that 10th-ranked LSU entered the meet owning the all-time series by an 84-9 margin, the Wildcats showed no signs of intimidation and earned their first victory of the season 197.125-196.575. It was UK’s third straight win against the Tigers and came after the Wildcats (2-1) finished second to Ohio State in their previous meet.

“The second we ended the (Ohio State) meet, I was just like, ‘I wanna be at Excite Night right now,’” UK junior Isabella Magnelli said. “We just needed to get the first meet out of the way … but I’m excited that our second meet was in Rupp and we killed it. And we went out there and we just have so much more for the rest of the season, so we’re excited.”

Magnelli was the highest scorer on vault, the Cats’ first rotation of the night, with a 9.925. She tied her career high on the apparatus and earned a roar from the crowd.

“Bella Magnelli, she comes in and she has this amazing personality,” UK gymnastics head coach Tim Garrison said. “She’s always up and she’s always happy. She makes you feel like she’s so happy to see you every single day. And it’s that kind of thing from her where she brings a lightness to the gym. She brings a lightness to the gym and a playfulness to the gym.”

The Wildcats outscored LSU on vault 49.3-49.2. It was one of three rotations won by UK with the Tigers only having the edge on uneven bars at 49.475-49.325.

However, multiple Wildcats achieved personal-best marks throughout that rotation.

Junior Hailey Davis tied her career high in the first spot of the uneven bars rotation with a 9.875. Senior Shealyn Luksik also tied her best mark with a 9.925. Sophomore Annie Riegert and senior Kaitlin DeGuzman went a step further and set career highs with a 9.8 and 9.9, respectively.

With each landing stuck on the bars and throughout Excite Night, Rupp Arena was filled with animated applause from Big Blue Nation. But, unsurprisingly, it was 2022 All-SEC honoree Raena Worley who brought the crowd to its feet all night.

The senior, who finished second among the all-around competitors on Excite Night with a 39.525, is a first-team All-American and 13-time all-around winner.

“Starting off strong with good energy just kind of transfers from event to event,” Worley said. “So when you start off strong, it just builds. And then people kept filing in as the night went on, so the crowd got bigger, the energy got bigger, we just gained more momentum as it went.”

That energy was apparent in Worley, who, while performing her meet-best event with a 9.95 on the beam, sang along to the song sound-tracking the routine.

And the energy didn’t stop after the meet, either.

The entire team stayed a long while after the final scores were announced to sign autographs and greet fans, but no one stayed later Worley. Following the dismantling of the apparatuses and the exit of most of the crowd, a pair of young fans caught the attention of Worley during postgame interviews.

The two girls, decked out in UK gear, were crying because they hadn’t yet been able to meet Worley but were told that the staff needed all fans to exit Rupp Arena for the night.

Worley kindly stepped away from interviews to make sure the young supporters didn’t have to leave the gym without a meeting.

“It’s easy to take her for granted.” Garrison said of Worley’s leadership and skill. “We’ve got five scores and Raena’s going up, this is a done deal. But she’s allowed us to feel that way. And that’s the great part, is that she’s pretty much gonna hit it every time she goes out there. At least that’s been the history.”

And Worley isn’t the only returner for whom Garrison, in his 12th season as UK’s coach, has high expectations.

Garrison said junior Bailey Bunn, who returns this season from a knee injury sustained just four meets into her sophomore campaign, brings an edge to the team.

“She is such a competitor,” Garrison said. “She came back from unfortunate injury last year and she was able to do beam last week. I always joke that she’s gonna slit my tires on my truck if I don’t put her in another event because that’s how badly she wants to compete. She’s just a competitor. And there were some mistakes that she made tonight that nobody ever saw. And that’s that mental toughness that she has. Having her back in the lineup, it’s an add. It’s a big-time add.”

Bunn recorded a 9.825 on uneven bars and a 9.85 on beam. Her impact was perhaps most felt during the balance beam rotation, when UK started slower than Garrison and the coaching staff would have liked.

On that apparatus, Luksik and sophomore Jillian Procasky led off for the Wildcats and delivered a 9.75 and 9.575, respectively.

Bunn stepped up and set the tone for the three Wildcats, senior Arianna Patterson (9.925), Worley (9.95) and Magnelli (9.85), who followed. Despite the slow start, beam ultimately tied for UK’s highest-scoring rotation with a total of 49.325.

Garrison said his team demonstrated how resilient it can be.

“Our first two beam competitors struggled a little bit,” he said. “The toughness that our back four showed, it was telling. It’s telling of the maturity, it’s telling that they’ve worked their tails off to get to that point where they can have that confidence, to have mistakes in front of them and still perform at a very high level. So that’s what we look at when we look at any of them. I want them to see our athletes perform in the way they did tonight. It’s fun to watch because we know everything that they’ve put into it and the fact that they’re getting out of it what they put into it.”

Though this team is still building and finding its footing, Magnelli said it is a special one.

“We have so much potential,” she said. “I feel like, a lot of times, the preseason rankings, they kind of score us a little bit lower … but we come out here and we show these teams what we’re made of. And everyone’s like, ‘Wow, who knew that they had this in them?’ But ‘Team 49’ is a team that you gotta watch out for, I’m telling you, because we’re gonna make it this year to nationals.”

UK next will travel to Athens, Ga., to take on the Georgia Bulldogs on Friday. The Wildcats’ next home meet will be against No. 8 Alabama in Memorial Coliseum on Jan. 27.

This story was originally published January 14, 2023 at 11:29 AM.