Gymnastics defends championship title
Oregon State will add competition to Pacific 10 tourney
By Esther Hui
Daily Bruin Staff
It’s a logjam in Pacific 10 women’s gymnastics. With the top
five teams in the conference already having scored a 195.00 or
higher in the team competition, it seems almost any team could win
the Pac-10 Championships to be held in Corvallis, Ore. on March
23.
Highest ranked is No. 7 Oregon State, which have the home crowd.
Defending Pac-10 champion No. 8 UCLA beat the Beavers at home in
February, but has lost to No. 13 Arizona and Arizona State already
this season..
"This will be the most competitive Pac-10s ever," UCLA head
coach Valorie Kondos said. "It’s going to come down to who hits –
if we hit, we’ll win."
UCLA has traditionally owned the Pac-10. The Bruins garnered six
of the nine Pac-10 team titles, with Oregon State claiming the
other three. With so much parity within the conference this season,
the Pac-10 meet has become even more meaningful.
"Pac-10 is all ego," Kondos said. "It’s pure bragging rights.
Last year we were really beat up before Pac-10, and I wasn’t going
to compete six on some events, and I wasn’t going to compete Leah
(Homma) in all-around, but they would have absolutely none of it.
This year the upperclassmen in particular have no interest in
losing this meet."
UCLA has also grabbed six of the nine all-around championships,
with Leah Homma winning in 1994 and, most recently, Stella Umeh
dominating in 1995 in addition to individual championships in bars,
beam and floor.
Both Homma and Umeh will challenge for the all-around, along
with Arizona’s Heidi Hornbeek, ranked No. 9 in the all-around, No.
6 on bars and fifth on floor. Umeh, this week’s Pac-10 Gymnast of
the Week, will enter this year’s event as a favorite in the
all-around.
Umeh is on a five-meet winning streak, and won the all-around
against both Oregon State (39.00) and Arizona State (39.275), and
topped Hornbeek, despite falling at the UCLA invite.
"I’m just going out there and doing what I’m capable of doing,"
Umeh said. "The judges can do what they want with it."
* * *
The Bruins will follow up the Pac-10 championships with a trip
to Utah to compete against No. 5 Brigham Young on March 30.
PATRICK LAM/Daily Bruin
Pacific 10 Gymnast of the Week, Stella Umeh, is the favorite to
win the all-around competition at the Pac-10 Championships.
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