2018 Women's NCAA Gymnastics Championships

Evanni Roberson Becomes Lineup Fixture For Washington GymDawgs

Evanni Roberson Becomes Lineup Fixture For Washington GymDawgs

Washington sophomore Evanni Roberson chats about what the GymDawgs have learned this season, her most challenging skill, and her favorite skill to compete.

Apr 16, 2018 by Lauren Green
Evanni Roberson Becomes Lineup Fixture For Washington GymDawgs

The 2017 NCAA championships marked the first time Washington sent a full team to nationals for the first time in 19 years. After a good performance at regionals, the GymDawgs made it back-to-back appearances at the NCAA championships. 

Evanni Roberson didn’t appear in the lineup as a freshman. Now a sophomore, she has been a fixture in the lineups across the board for Washington. She competed on all four events for the first nine meets of the season with a season-best 39.425 in the all-around against Arizona State on the road. 

Roberson has been a consistent performer on balance beam, where she has picked up a 9.800 or better in her last 11 routines. She posted a career-high 9.925 twice—on Feb. 24 against Stanford and on March 9 against UC Davis and Seattle Pacific. The highlight of her beam routine comes in her unique series—a layout-layout. The sophomore is a reliable performer on bars where she hasn’t scored below a 9.725 all season. She has a fun floor routine as well and has gone 9.800 or better in 10 of 13 routines. 



Washington will compete against Oklahoma, Kentucky, Utah, Cal, and Florida on April 20 in the second semifinal session.

FloGymnastics: What is your favorite event to perform on and why?

Evanni Roberson: My favorite event to perform on is beam because I feel like a lot of people are uncomfortable performing on beam and dancing big and smiling at the judges and making eye contact. I think that’s something that sets me apart from other people and helps me get big scores for the team.

What is your favorite skill to perform on any event?

My favorite skill to perform is my rudi-layout on floor because, similar to Zoey, I feel like if the rudi is good, it makes my layout feel like it’s floating through the air. It’s super easy to drop it in and land it and then perform the rest of my floor routine.



What is the most challenging skill that you’ve learned and what made it challenging for you?

I think my series on beam—my standing layout, layout—was the hardest thing for me to learn this year because I’ve never done it before. It was super hard to get consistent and get the rhythm. That was pretty difficult for me.



What has been the biggest takeaway from the regular season that you’ll look to use at nationals?

The biggest thing that we took away from the regular season was realizing that we are a top-10 team, if not top-five, and we deserve to be where we are and we work hard to be where we are. We’re a very talented team. In the beginning of the season, we didn’t realize our potential but coming out of the regular season we really see it now. Going into nationals, that’s a big thing to realize our potential and how good we actually are.

How do you bounce back from a fall?

Your team does have your back and knowing that helps you bounce back from a fall a little bit easier. And also knowing that you don’t know if your routine is going to have to count or not. Getting back up and finishing your routine like it never happened and just getting as much as you can out of that routine despite the fall.



How would you describe each other in three words? [Editor’s note: We interviewed Evanni and teammate Zoey Schaefer together and had them describe each other instead of themselves.]

Zoey Schaefer: I would describe Ev as confident, persistent, and a leader.

Evanni Roberson: I would describe Zoey as sassy, well-spoken, and outgoing.

What are you most looking forward to about competing at nationals?

I’m excited to just go out there for the last time this season with this team and just enjoy every moment of it and really have our meet. Just let go and let our gymnastics flow and do our thing out there and see what happens and see how far that takes us. I’m really excited to go out there again and have fun with my girls.