Gymnasts finish 6th at NCAAs

By Sarah Ensor

Daily Sports Writer

Sometimes even the best fairy tales don't have happy endings.

The Michigan women's gymnastics team learned this lesson at the NCAA Championships in Boise, Idaho from April 13-15.

The Wolverines scored a 195.725 to finish sixth in the nation, finishing behind eventual champion UCLA.

The result was both a surprise and a disappointment to Michigan, which entered the meet as the country's top-ranked team and as one of the favorites to bring home the title.

"We were obviously very disappointed with how things finished, because we had much higher aspirations," Michigan coach Bev Plocki said. "It was a disappointing way to end a very good season."

The Wolverines' problems centered on the balance beam, an event whose challenges Michigan had conquered throughout the regular season.

In the preliminary round of competition, Michigan tallied a 48.150 on theapparatus, its worst score since the season-opening Super Six Challenge. The next night, in the team finals, Michigan drew the least desirable rotation and had to begin competition on the beam.

"On day two, when we drew to start on balance beam, it was doubly bad," Plocki said. "To end on a low note on beam the first night and then to have to come back and start on beam where you know you had problems the night before? Those kids came with great attitudes and great effort, but they were thinking one thing - don't fall."

But fall they did. After a shaky performance, the Wolverines were forced to count one fall for a score of 48.100. That put them in sixth place after the first rotation and created a deficit that was impossible to overcome.

"When you're on the balance beam, and you have the tiniest error, you're on the floor before you can blink an eye," Plocki said. "It's happened to the best, and it happened to us this year."

Fortunately, things went better for the Wolverines in the individual finals. Senior tri-captain Sarah Cain was named a first-team All-American in the all-around, vault, floor exercise, and uneven bars, capturing third place honors in the floor exercise and vault and second place in the all-around.

But, even with these triumphs came disappointment, as Cain lost the all-around title to Nebraska's Heather Brink by a mere 0.025 points.

"Unfortunately, nothing really seemed to be in our favor," Plocki said. "Sarah Cain came in second to Heather Brink by a quarter of a tenth, which is heartbreaking. If anybody in the history of Michigan gymnastics deserved to leave here with a national title to her name, it's Sarah Cain."

Despite the repeated disappointments of the championship weekend, those involved recognize that the season overall was still a success.

"As I told my team afterward, this was not a disappointing season," Plocki said. "We did not underachieve. We won Big Tens, we won regionals, we were No. 1 in the country."