The Alabama fans were chanting "10! 10! 10!" and "Roll Tide Roll" as Zaakira Muhammad took the floor. Kiana Winston had just performed a nearly flawless routine to close out the first event for the Crimson Tide, part of a slew of impressive performances, and the school's faithful seemed to be feeling confident of the team's chances of advancing to the Super Six.
Muhammad had to tune all that out as she readied herself for her performance on Friday night at Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis. While the crowd went nearly silent when she began, it livened up after she nailed her first tumbling pass. And then her second, and her third. The Alabama team cheered and high-fived her as she walked off.
But Muhammad isn't a member of the Alabama team. She instead competes for West Virginia. As her squad didn't qualify for the team competition at NCAA championships during regionals, the junior was forced to compete for the individual all-around title on her own and participate in Alabama's rotation during the semifinal round.
Her navy blue-and-yellow leotard stood out among the sea of glittery crimson that surrounded her.
"It's pretty hard to compete without your team, and try to fit in with another team that you're rotating with," Muhammad said. "It's hard to get your momentum going, and it's hard to be doing your routines and not hearing your team cheer you on. It can be a challenge."
Competing as a lone individual is a stark contrast to how team-oriented college gymnastics and its championship weekend are. For Muhammad and 18 others contending for the all-around and event titles, it meant having to be a part of another team's evening. Pegged onto the end of the team's events, one or two gymnasts from opposing schools would then compete after said school's rotation had ended.
Conditioned to spending almost every waking moment during the season with her Mountaineer teammates, Muhammad was initially nervous about such unchartered territory for her first national championship experience and having to compete at such a big stage with another team. Ultimately though, she found it to be better than she had expected, if not somewhat awkward.
"Alabama was great and really fun," she said. "Their crowd even cheered for me. Their coaches were really helpful, and they helped me through the whole rotation. They have these cards they use to tell them who's going next, and they made me a card, which was really nice of them to do. They cheered for me through every event, and even in practice, and even did some of my dances on floor."
It still was an adjustment for Muhammad, and she struggled on the balance beam. Needing a few balance checks, she scored a 9.4875 and felt like that was in part due to the abnormal experience.
However, for a seasoned gymnast like Elizabeth Price, in many ways, it couldn't have worked out much better. The Stanford junior qualified for the uneven bars and was assigned to compete with the Florida Gators. With her best friend Kennedy Baker on the team, as well as a number of other friends she grew up competing against, it was the next-best-thing to being with her own team.
"Being just on one event, I had a lot of downtime, but I rotated the whole night with Florida," she said. "I'm friends with so many girls on the team so I was able to relax and have fun, and when I got to bars, I was able to focus. If I had to just sit there by myself and think about bars the whole time, I would have driven myself crazy.
"As an individual, you're kind of like on your own island, so teams always try to incorporate [said individuals] into the team culture and everything, and I felt that with Florida. ... I was basically cheering them on like they were my own team, just like they were cheering me on just like my team would."
And for the 2012 Olympic alternate, competing alone reminded her of previous days during elite competition.
"I basically had to revert back to thought processes I had back then when I was competing as an individual against other individuals," Price said. "It's not a team effort. It's definitely different, but I definitely am prepared for it having competed at the elite level for so many years."
Not having a team to coordinate meals, details and schedules with meant more free time for Price, which she said wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She ultimately called the experience "less chaotic" than normal, but she missed having her teammates around.
Still, perhaps due to the strange circumstance, Price -- who was considered a podium contender entering the day -- ultimately didn't have her typical routine and finished with a score of 9.7750 for a disappointing 65th-place result on the event. Muhammad finished 33rd in the all-around, with a final score of 39.0375. A 9.9125 score on her floor routine was good enough for eighth place, however, and she was subsequently named as an All-American second-team honoree on the event.
But despite being West Virginia's lone competitor in St. Louis, Muhammad never felt like she was actually alone. Aside from her new friends from Alabama, she also knew she had the support of her teammates back in Morgantown, and wanted to represent for them, as well as herself. Every member of the team had written her a card before she left, wishing her luck and letting her know how happy they were for her.
"I never really had the mindset that I was just going out for myself," she said. "Even though they're not here, I was going out there tonight for my teammates, for my university, and I just wanted to make them all proud."