by Amos Naismith
March 25, 2006 (c) TrueAggies.com
Exclusive to TrueAggies.com
LOGAN, Utah -- As the hosts of the WAC Championships the Utah State gymnastics team took fourth with an overall score of 193.1. Eight-tenths of a point separated the Aggies from first-place Sacramento State.
The conference meet brought six teams together at the Spectrum to compete for the title of WAC Champion. In addition to USU and Sac. St., teams included Southern Utah, Cal. State Fullerton, San Jose State, and Boise State.
Advancement to the regional tournament was determined during the year by each team’s Regional Qualifying Score. The results of the conference championship had little bearing on who went on for any of the teams involved.
The Aggies had strong outings in the uneven parallel bars and vault events. Jessica Parenti took first in the bars, scoring 9.875, and Alex Martin was third with a 9.8. Martin executed a very clean and fluid routine with smooth transitions and releases. The difference between her and Parenti was probably the smallest of steps she took on her landing.
The vault was the best event for Utah State, scoring a season high of 48.8 as a team, largely due to Parenti’s score of 9.85. Even when Katie Omann’s spinning vault continued into her landing and took her a step off the mat she still scored a 9.65. The evening out of the scoring came on a previous run when Nicole Felley kept tight form and completely stuck her landing, but only got a 9.75.
As a team the scoring was weakest for USU in the floor event. A fall doomed Felley to an 8.9. Meagan Lewis’ super-high flying routine went well until the very end where she also stumbled for a 9.05. Martin also had a solid routine with the exception of stepping out of bounds – she scored a 9.6. Liesel Kohler performed her high-energy routine very well, sticking all of her landings and keeping her form through each of her passes. Kohler scored a 9.7. Parenti came in next with a 9.725, while Megan Tschida’s solid landing on each of her aerial passes was good enough to take fourth overall in the meet with a 9.75.
All-conference honors were determined as follows: first team status was given to the top three in each event, while fourth through six were given second honors. The Aggies receiving first-team All-WAC honors were Parenti in all-around, vault, and bars. Martin was first-team in bars, and Tschida took second team honors on floor.
Utah State put a close to a hard year going winless in conference competition.
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