W. gym takes fourth at NCAA team finals

W. gym takes fourth at NCAA team finals

By Esther Hui

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

ATHENS, Ga. — It was a bittersweet ending for UCLA gymnast
Kareema Marrow, Friday night at the NCAA Super Six team
championships, as she scored the second perfect 10.0 of her career,
but watched UCLA fall to fourth place overall.

It was a remarkably close competition, and five of the six teams
were still in contention for the national title as the last
rotation began. All events except floor exercise were finished, and
so Marrow, the last competitor of the evening, began her floor
routine knowing only that all final team scores except for UCLA’s
had already been totalled.

As the 7,758 in the Georgia Coliseum looked on, Marrow tumbled a
double layout for her first pass, a whip back to a double twist for
her second pass ­ and stuck them both. During a pause in the
music right before her last tumbling pass, she stopped, put her
hands on her thighs just as Tyus Edney did during the
UCLA-Connecticut game and looked right at the UCLA team, and then
ran for her last pass, a double pike, which she nailed cold. The
judges flashed a perfect 10.0.

"It felt awesome," Marrow said of the perfect score. "After I
finished my floor routine, I started crying. Everything was coming
to an end, competing as a Bruin, competing as a gymnast."

For UCLA, however, Marrow’s routine came too late, as the Bruins
finished fourth with a 196.150 to two-time defending champion Utah
(196.650). The No. 1 ranked pre-meet favorite Georgia came in a
disappointing fifth (196.075).

UCLA had had a good night by any standards, setting a season
record on the beam (49.250), and competing one of its best floor
sets of the year (49.175, second only to Thursday night’s
49.425).

But the Bruins weren’t flawless. There were two falls on bars,
one which counted in the team score, and several hopes on vault
landings. With less than a six-tenth spread between first and fifth
place, nothing less than perfection could have won it.

"I look at the fourth place finish, and I think, ‘Why aren’t I
feeling better?’" UCLA head coach Valorie Kondos said. "If I look
at what they accomplished, and what they did, and how they
competed, I feel very good.

"But you can’t help but ‘what if.’ What if Stella had competed
her normal bar routine like she always does ­ we would have
been second. What if Amy had competed the floor routine she did
last night, what if Leah (who only competed two events due to a
hurt ankle) could have done the all-around."

The Bruins were consistent on their first event, hitting all six
vaults for a 49.025. The Utes did not bend under the pressure of
starting on beam, which has been their best event, and had no falls
for a 49.100.

Georgia, also beginning on beam, was not as solid, with the
first and last gymnast tumbling to the ground. It was a bizarre
repeat of last year’s NCAA finals, when Georgia had the
championship wrapped up going into the last rotation but then lost
to Utah when three gymnasts fell on the beam.

In the next rotation, floor, Utah again counted no major errors
for a 49.250. Georgia pulled itself back in with three gymnasts
scoring a 9.90 or better. The Bruins were on bars, and despite
having scored the highest bar total of the entire preliminary team
competition, bars were their downfall Friday night.

UCLA’s Liz Lahey was the first, and sat down her double tuck
dismount. Stella Umeh, in a routine she hasn’t missed all season,
landed her double twist dismount off balance and put her hand
down.

It was a pattern set by Georgia and continued through the meet
until Alabama’s double mistake on its last event which cost it the
championship ­ the first gymnast falling, and a high-scoring
gymnast following with a costly error.

"When a fall happens, everyone knows the next fall counts," UCLA
senior Megan Fenton said.

Next, the Utes moved to vault, not their best event, but again
all six gymnasts landed solidly. Alabama was the surprise leader,
after barely having qualified for the Super Six. Georgia began its
best event, vault, while UCLA was on beam. Despite competing amidst
the barks and cheers which followed each Bulldog vault, the Bruins
partially regained the confidence they had lost on the bars, with
Fenton, Corinne Chee and Amy Smith all scoring personal bests for
the evening high, 49.250.

Going into the last event Utah again had no breaks, finishing
with defending uneven bars champion Sandy Woolsey, who stuck a full
twisting double back dismount for a 9.95. The Utes totalled a
196.65. It was on this last rotation that Alabama, with the
championship virtually locked up, faltered on its first and last
routines, and dropped to second with a 196.425. The Bulldogs
dropped to fifth when two of their gymnasts fell from the bars.

Despite the high scores on beam, UCLA needed a near-perfect
49.600 on floor to pass Utah. Corinne Chee performed the best
routine of her career for a 9.800, and Dee Fischer equalled her
best score with a 9.850. But then Smith left out a tumbling run and
scored a 9.600. As Marrow stepped up, there was no chance left for
the Bruins to break into the top three.

For Utah, the championship was won not with audacious tumbling,
but with clean consistency.

"We never talk about the national championships as a goal," Utah
head coach Greg Marsden said. "A lot of times its something you
can’t control. We knew some people would have to miss for us to
win, but that doesn’t diminish it."

Said Kondos: "I said to the team in the car that last year they
said they wouldn’t ever go to nationals again without being on the
award stand (top four teams), and you’re on the award stand. And
Megan said, ‘Yeah, but we almost weren’t’. But by that same margin
they almost won a national championship, you can look at it any way
you want to."