NCAA Gymnastic Giants Georgia and UCLA fight it out with the Arizona Wildcats

Gym Dogs Defeat Bruins
Los Angeles, California
by Calvin Morris

No disrespect to the Arizona Wildcats, the third member of this triangular meet held at Pauley Pavilion, but this competition was between two NCAA gymnastics giants. Georgia and UCLA represent half of the teams that have won and NCAA women's gymnastics titles and between them account for more than half of the total NCAA championships. The remainder of the short list of NCAA women's gymnastics champions, Alabama and Utah are both ranked higher than Georgia and UCLA but only Alabama has won a title in the 21st century. Both Georgia and UCLA have won five. Even more impressive, Georgia's championships were consecutive - 2005 through 2009.

History and rankings are interesting conversation topics but what really matters are current performances. Georgia scored 196.175. UCLA scored 195.75. Arizona tallied 194.125. The 0.425 margin of victory may seem close to the uninitiated. In a sport that scores events to the nearest thousandth of a point, it was a significant victory for Georgia and serves as validation for the Gym Dogs sixth place ranking, two places above UCLA. As for host team, the Bruins actually led the meet by 0.6 after two rotations but were forced to include two routines with falls (a mandatory 0.5 deduction) in their total.

With the exception of UCLA's sub par balance beam performances, there were no big surprises. Georgia and UCLA dominated the first five places in most events. Arizona's Deanna Graham (tied for third), Mykle Douglas (fifth place) broke that pattern in the vault. UCLA's Olivia Courtney and Tauney Frattone tied for first (9.925). Georgia's Kat Ding (9.925) was first in the uneven parallel bars. Bruin, Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs was top scorer on the balance beam (9.950). Gym Dog, Cassidy McComb won the all around (39.525) and tied for first in the floor exercise with Bruins Tauny Frattone and Niki Tom (9.900).

Overall it was a solid, entertaining meet witnessed by 5,837 attendees. Conference championships are in the near future, followed regional meets and culminating in the 2011 NCAA championships. Considering the fact that five teams are ranked higher then these perennial powerhouses, qualifying for the championships should be an unmitigated take-no-prisoners battle.

Complete results of the Arizona-Georgia-UCLA meet are available at:
http://www.uclabruins.com/sports/w-gym/stats/2010-2011/20110306.html

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Gym Dogs Defeat Bruins

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