American Ninja Warrior Junior What-Ifs; Season One

Episode Six

A/N: With the qualifiers about a third over, it's time to get interesting! Plenty of falls in the later episodes, especially on TIC TOC (TAYLOR RICHARDS, SIENNA PEREZ, DAISY O'BRIEN, BELLA PALMER AND BRYNLI SMITH). That said, really nothing to say about this episode. I couldn't find a lot of the races on YouTube so I'm mostly going off of the recap on NinjaGuide and it didn't seem like anyone missed a crucial opportunity and there were no weird blunders.
Knockout Round: Anthony Austin versus Lila Hodgson
"While we were away, seeding round winner Anthony Austin went up against "Baby Bull" Lila Hodgson in their knockout race. Baby Bull charged through the first four obstacles, but almost spun out of the competition on Spin Cycle. But when Anthony took a splash, Lila got the win".
Final Showdowns
Zack Keenan versus Lila Hodgson
"Lila taking the early lead. Ooh, stumbles on Tic Toc, but stays alive. Zack is surging into the lead. Lila is pushing hard to catch up, but Zack is pulling away!
"Lila's on Spin Cycle, but Zack is already looking for the dismount. And he's got it!"
Semifinalists
Zack Keenan
Tate Allen
Blake Feero
A/N: Yeah, umm... that's it. I was going to have Ricardo Perez make the Flying Shelf Grab dismount morning in one move, but he did NOT have the momentum for it. At least since this was so short, I can devote the rest of the chapter to those bizarre quarterfinals tonight.
It starts with the 9/10 wildcard race, Daniel Woods versus Shae McCarl. Their best times were very close. I was predicting a photo finish. But Shae fell on the Flying Squirrel, kicking off a LONG night of bizarre falls.
The next two competitors are Bella Palmer and Adil Mbondo (Advil? Really, auto-correct? Well, that episode was painful to watch). At this point, it seems pretty obvious how this age group will play out. Bella will beat Adil, Daniel will narrowly defeat Lindsey, then Bella will defeat Daniel for the third time. And yup, Bella wins. She's even figured out that push off on the Little Dipper, her only weak point!
Daniel defeats Lindsey Zimmerman (Can anyone explain why Team Ninja Warrior is no longer "competition"?), who trips going up the Warped Wall and basically tries to jump straight to the first notch.
11/12 wildcard race. Emily Keener takes the lead... and falls on Block Run. But wait, it gets better! The next two competitors are Luke Beckstrand and Taylor Greene, meaning that the wildcard, Holden McNeil, who WAS NOT A SEMIFINALIST LAST YEAR, is going to be destroyed by Tate Allen FOR THE THIRD TIME!!! As if the impending slaughter between Bella and Daniel isn't bad enough.
13/14 wildcard: Weird to see these two in the wildcard round. And Pardo goes down on the Little Dipper! Honestly amazed Godbout didn't go down as well. That was a HUGE jump. He doesn't realize he's won, sprints at top speed to the buzzer, collapses on top of the Warped Wall, has a millisecond-long freak out, hits the buzzer, and then realizes Pardo is nowhere to be seen.
Cal Plohoros versus Devan Alexander. I give Cal the edge. Umm.. not profile-wise, though. "I'm really short, but if I stand up super tall, I look slightly less short!" Really? That is one of the three worst profiles of all time! (The other two are that guy who trained by playing a dance game and Drew Drechsel's thing in the Orlando city finals where James McGrath was just like, "He eats candy and sleeps a lot!" So they get to the Sky Hooks, CAL'S BEST OBSTACLE, and he totally loses his momentum, tries to dismount without taking any extra swings, and strangely he doesn't manage to miraculously sprout wings and fly over the to the platform!
So by the end of the episode, Rose Lord, Olivia Kosanovich, Jonathan Godbout, and Cal Plohoros had all fallen on the Sky Hooks.
So, in season one, Bella Palmer was very good in her qualifiers, until she fell on Tic Toc. I should have seen the warning signs. Rematch. She looked fine on the second obstacle in her last race. SPLASH! That must be awful for her.
Episode seven is next. Speaking of Tic Toc...
Tate Allen beats Taylor Greene, and what I want to know is, why were these two in the same group? Last year, the 9/10 and 11/12 semifinals were very obviously rigged to get a girl into the final four. So after ensuring Taylor Greene would make the finale when she didn't need help, why would they put probably the strongest girl in the competition with one of the few people capable of beating her?
And then, just because Tate Allen versus Taylor Greene was actually a good race and the universe just really wants this whole episode to go down in flames, Carson Edwards falls on Block Run.
So out of this big utter fiery total epic disastrous mess come Daniel Woods (he was a wildcard for a reason, Little Dipper!), Tate Allen (he is now my new favorite ninja because he didn't screw up or benefit from anyone else's mistakes), and Devan Alexander (absolute train wreck, but at least he deserves to move on. He hasn't been mistake-free, but at least he hasn't fallen since the seeding round.
I thought that this season had a better quality of competitors, but after watching that abomination followed by the fifth episode... In the first five episodes of season one, there were 25 falls. There have been 36 falls so far this season.
Also, I wish Bella would stop screwing up because it makes me really hate whoever beats her. Season one, Jason McNeil was good and could have beaten several of the other semifinalists, but I couldn't see past the final showdown. Now with Daniel Woods, he's good, but I will always believe that he didn't deserve that spot in the finale. I think Sienna Perez is up soon. Please please please please please PLEASE get past the Little Dipper in every race.