The NCAA News - News and Features

April 27, 1998

Team effort takes Georgia to fourth women's gymnastics championship

Georgia earned a fourth National Collegiate Women's Gymnastics Championships team title April 16-18 at UCLA with what coach Suzanne Yoculan called a complete team effort.

"We did it, and I mean 'we' did it. This was a total team effort," Yoculan said.

Georgia won with a point total of 197.725.

Senior Karin Lichey placed first in three events in the team-finals competition. Senior Kim Arnold also earned a second-place finish on the floor exercise behind UCLA's Stella Umeh, who scored a perfect 10 on a flawless floor routine. Georgia earned top scores in three events, including the vault (49.600), bars (49.450) and beam (49.300).

The Southeastern Conference claimed the top three places in the standings. Following the Lady Bulldogs were conference rivals Florida at 196.350 and Alabama at 196.300.

Utah and UCLA rounded out the top five.

Arnold repeated as individual all-around champion with a 39.725, beating out teammate Lichey, who scored 39.700 in the event.

Florida's Susan Hines, last year's vault champion, shared this year's honors with Larissa Fontaine of Stanford. Both scored 9.8625 in the event.

Hines was the first of the two to compete in the finals.

"I probably sweated off about 10 pounds waiting," she said. "I just tried to set the tone. There were so many questions on defending the title. It has been sitting in the back of my mind since January. I'm glad to get the pressure off."

"I really didn't know the scores," Fontaine said. "I had seen a few but had not really added them up. I'm very excited. I thought I was in good position after my first vault."

The only individual event title not to be shared was in the uneven bars. In front of a hometown crowd of 4,406, UCLA's Heidi Moneymaker hit her bars routine with a score of 9.950.

"It's a great feeling to win at home," said Moneymaker, UCLA's first bars champion. "After we started off shaky yesterday, I wanted something for us to be proud of. It's especially nice because of the crowd. We have never had a crowd like this before."

There was a three-way split in the beam contest, the first in the event's championship history. Florida freshman Betsy Hamm tied with Georgia teammates Arnold and Jenni Beathard. All scored 9.875 on their routines. Hamm, who completed a back layout with a full twist in her routine, is believed to be the first collegiate gymnast to complete the feat.

"I thought of it about a year and a half ago, and I played with it on the floor," she said. "I competed it on the beam last year (as a junior in high school), but I hadn't thrown it in college competition. My coach (Judi Markell) said tonight was my night, and I could do what I wanted. I haven't thrown it on the high beam since last May. But it worked tonight, so I'm happy."

UCLA's Umeh and Georgia's Lichey each scored 9.950 to share top honors on the floor exercise.