No. 2 Utah Gymnastics Close Home Season On Friday

March 20, 2006

SALT LAKE CITY -

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The No. 2-ranked Utah gymnasts (10-2) will hold their last home meet of the season on Friday, Mar. 24 starting at 7 p.m. in the Huntsman Center. The opponent is No. 23 Brigham Young ... Five Utes will be honored before the meet as a part of Senior Night ceremonies. They are: Dominique D'Oliveira, Natalie Nicoloff, Gritt Hofmann, Gabriella Onodi and Kristen Riffanacht ... Friday's meet is also Utah's final regular season competition ... The Utes will learn of their NCAA regional destination on Monday, Mar. 27 (more information follows) ... Live scoring and video streaming for the Utah-BYU meet can be found at UtahUtes.com ... The meet will be televised tape-delayed both locally (KJZZ) and nationally (CSTV).

SO LONG SENIORS

The Utes will bid farewell to nearly half of their squad in Senior Night ceremonies this Friday. It will be the second senior night for Gritt Hofmann, who was honored last year before the NCAA granted her an additional year of eligibility for medical reasons. She and three of the other seniors will be in the lineup Friday, while one (Natalie Nicoloff) will watch from the sidelines due to a season-ending elbow injury. Hofmann plans to compete on vault, beam and floor, co-captain Kristen Riffanacht on beam and floor, Gabriella Onodi on beam and Dominique D'Oliveira on bars.

POSTSEASON PLANS

Utah will learn its destination for the NCAA Regional Championship on Monday, Mar. 27. While Utah belongs to the North Central Region, it has been sent out of region three of the seven years under the current format. Utah has participated in four North Central Regionals (2000, 2001, 2003, 2005), two West Regionals (1999, 2002) and one South Central Regional (2004). The top 18 teams nationally, based on regional qualifying score (RQS), will be seeded and paired into the six regions (three per region). The remaining three slots will be filled from within the region. There are six regions and the top two teams from each, regardless of score, will advance to the NCAA Championships, April 20-22 in Corvallis, Ore. The six regional hosts are: Iowa State (North Central), LSU (Central), Michigan (Northeast), Arkansas (South Central), Georgia (Southeast) and Stanford (West).

UTE NOTES

Utah is 5-1 at home and 5-1 on the road. Both losses were to teams ranked in the top three (No. 1 Georgia and No. 3 Florida) ... Dominique D'Oliveira tied her season-best of 9.775 on bars at Florida while replacing injured Katie Kivisto. D'Oliveira, Utah's first competitor of the night at Florida, expects to lead off the bar lineup this Friday for the fourth time this season ... Nicolle Ford suffered her first fall of the year at Florida. Ford made it through most of her upgraded floor routine before falling while landing her final pike double back. She is still Utah's most consistent gymnast this season, "hitting" 39-40 routines ... Jessica Duke is nursing a strained Achilles and her training was limited prior to last week's meet. She did not compete on floor exercise as a precaution, but did do a vault and bar routine ... Senior Kristen Riffanacht took Duke's place in the floor lineup and will likely do so again this week ... Freshman Beth Rizzo warmed up on floor at Florida in case the Utes suffered another injury. Rizzo hopes to redshirt, but had anyone else gone down, she would have competed ... Four Utes have scored a 39.35 or better in the all-around: Ashley Postell (39.65), Nicolle Ford (39.55), Kristina Baskett (39.40) and Nina Kim (39.35) ... Top Ute individual event scorers are Baskett on vault (9.975), Ford on bars (9.975), and Postell on beam (9.975) and floor (9.925) ... Ute winners include: Baskett (15), Postell (15), Ford (13), Gritt Hofmann (5), Jessica Duke (1) and Kim (1).

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