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Gymnastics
vs Red Rocks Preview
The University of Utah Athletics
Sunday, March 4
Seattle, Wash.
2:00 PM PT
University of Utah
196
at
196.725
Washington
Ute Gymnasts stumble to tie with Washington.
3/4/2001 12:00 AM | Gymnastics
March 4, 2001
SEATTLE -
The University of Utah gymnastics team was fit to be tied in its tri-meet with Washington and Western Michigan Sunday afternoon after a sub-par floor exercise performance cut a big two-event lead in half. And that's exactly what happened when the meet concluded and the Utes stumbled to a tie with Washington. Utah and UW each scored a 196.725, well ahead of third-place Western Michigan (194.075).
The Utes were rolling toward their 28th win in as many attempts against UW when they almost bounced right out of contention on the floor exercise. Freshman Melissa Vituj fell on her first pass, just her second fall on any event all year, Shannon Bowles stepped out of bounds and Theresa Wolf bounced all the way off the mat. Just like that, Washington was in position to win its first meet ever with the Utes.
Certainly, Utah's .40 lead going into the fourth rotation loomed small, as the Utes were headed to their lowest scoring event, the vault, and Washington would finish on its best event, the floor. And, while Utah managed a respectable 49.100 on the vault, Washington was on its way to a school-record 49.500 on the floor. Still, the meet was Utah's unless UW's final performer, Mandi Klug scored the first 10.0 of her career and just the second 10.0 in school history. The judges complied, Klug scored a 10.0 and the Utes finished in a tie for the fourth time in their history and the first time since the 1996 NCAA Championships, where they tied for third with Georgia.
"We did a very nice job on bars and beam," said Utah Head Coach Greg Marsden. "But we were all over the place on the floor. The floor here has a different bounce that our athletes just could not get used to. We finished up with a pretty nice vault, but we let the meet get away from us on the floor."
Theresa Kulikowski and Shannon Bowles were winners for Utah, with Kulikowski capturing the bars (9.925) and Bowles winning the beam with a 9.950. Kulikowski placed second on the beam with a 9.925 and Deidra Graham placed second in the all-around (39.450) behind Washington's Stacy Wong (39.650). Bowles was third in the all-around with a season-high 39.425.
"Washington did a nice job," said Marsden. "I felt that to win up here we'd have to be crisp and clean on every event. We weren't as crisp as I would have expected from a Utah team." Utah returns home to host Oregon State on Saturday at 7 p.m. in the Huntsman Center.
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