Staff Reports
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 23, 1998

Sidelines

In its final regular season meet, the No. 23 Arizona gymnastics team gave a disappointing performance en route to a sixth place finish in the Pacific 10 Conference Championships with a score of 192.800 Saturday at UCLA.

"We only had to count one fall, so it was a decent meet for us. But overall I would say that the team did not perform as well as we would have liked," UA head coach Jim Gault said. "I think not having the total firepower in our lineup hurt the team. It would have been nice to have Heidi (Hornbeek) and Maureen (Kealey) in there."

Stanford upset host UCLA to take the meet with a team score of 195.275. Oregon State (194.950) and Arizona State (194.900) each gave a late charge to finish second and third respectively. The Bruins finished fourth with a mark of 194.700.

"It feels really exciting to come back to Pauley Pavilion and feel the success with this team that I felt last year with UCLA," Stanford head coach Mark Cook said. "Hopefully we'll be back next month for NCAAs."

UCLA's Stella Umeh captured the all around title with a career-high 39.6. Arizona's top finisher was senior Cami Banholzer, who finished third with a mark of 9.875 in the floor exercise.

"We had some outstanding individual performances," UA assistant coach Bill Ryden said. "In particular, Rose (McLaughlin), Cami and Kristin (McDermott) gave great efforts in the beam with Cami also doing well on the floor."

Even with the Wildcats finishing sixth, their score was good enough to keep them at No. 5 in the region. And with the top six teams making the NCAA Midwest Regionals April 4, Arizona will have one more chance to make some noise in the postseason.

"I think the girls know that this next meet could be their last," Gault said. "After seeing the surprises that happened in the Pac-10s, we know that anything can happen. But we have to really prepare ourselves for regionals."

-Arlie Rahn

By the Numbers

19:

The combined amount of points that Mike Bibby, Michael Dickerson and Miles Simon scored in Saturday's blowout loss to Utah. The Arizona trio made just six of their 36 shot attempts in the game.