By
Adrienne Mackey
Arizona Daily Wildcat
The No. 24 Arizona gymnastics team knew they were up against some stiff competition when they traveled to Seattle for the Pacific 10 Championships Saturday to face five other top-ranked teams.
Though Arizona finished sixth, the team managed to post its third-highest team total of the season in front of a crowd of more than 3,000 fans at Bank of America Arena.
The meet was close in every event and in overall totals, with the Pac-10 winner, Stanford, posting a score only two points higher than the Wildcats.
Arizona's team total of 195.525 is high enough to be No. 9 on UA's top 10 scoring list. In normal GymCat fashion, the good came with the bad - with the Cats finishing next-to-last, but moving up to the No. 23 spot in the nation according to the RQS (Regional Qualifying System).
Senior Kara Fry led her team, nailing the ninth spot in the All-Around with a score of 39.300. Junior All-American Randi Liljenquist, who had an ankle injury, fought through the pain and finished 11th overall.
Freshman Andi McCabe wowed the crowd, finishing 13th overall.
Head Coach Bill Ryden said he is optimistic about the NCAA Regionals.
"We had a good meet and we were pretty happy with our overall score," he said. "We had one of our better competitions at the championships than we have had in recent years."
The next step for UA is a big one - the Wildcats will head out for the Regional Championships on April 7.
The appearance will be UA's 15th consecutive Regionals appearance, the second-longest postseason streak behind the men's basketball team.
