UGA Gym Dogs Earn Spot In NCAA Championship

by Ashley Tate
04/21/2008

The top-ranked Gym Dogs earned their ticket to the NCAA Championship with their first-place finish at the Northeast Regionals held on Saturday, April 12.

The team totaled a 197.775 win at Penn State’s Rec Hall. This is the highest total in regional victory since the Georgia team tied that score in 2001. This is also the Gym Dog’s highest total score accomplished in an away meet this season.

The girls further proved themselves by tallying a season-high 49.575 on beam, an event in which they had been lacking consistency this season.

Coach Suzanne Yoculan could not be happier since it is the 20th time in her 25-year career that her team has won a regional meet.

"Regional meets have not necessarily been our teams' fortes in the past 10 years, so I'm really proud of the way we performed tonight," Yoculan said. "We're still having some troubles on vault, but our other three events were beautiful tonight, especially beam."

Tiffany Tolnay won the all-around with a career-high 39.675. She scored a couple of 9.900s on bars and beam, along with meet-winning scores of 9.925 on floor and 9.950 on vault. It was Tolnay's second straight regional vault title.

“Tiffany really put a great meet together tonight,” Yoculan said. “She had four very solid events.”

Other individual titles won by Gym Dogs were Katie Heenan with a 9.950 on bars; Heenan, Grace Taylor and Courtney McCool all with 9.950s on beam; and McCool with a 9.925 on floor. This marked the second straight year all event titles were won by a Georgia gymnast in a regional meet.

Georgia now advances to the National Championships, which the Gym Dogs are hosting this week (April 24-26) at Stegeman Coliseum. They will compete for their fourth straight national title, beginning on beam.

The top two teams from each regional championship received automatic berths to Nationals. Georgia will be joined by fellow Northeast qualifier Denver; Florida and UCLA (Southeast); Utah and Arkansas (North Central); Alabama and Oklahoma (South Central); LSU and Stanford (Central); and Oregon State and Michigan (West).

The top two all-around competitors from each regional competition also received automatic berths. Additionally, the event winners at the regional championships advance to Nationals in their specific event. Each of these occurs even if the gymnast is not on a qualifying team.

Competition begins Thursday at 1 p.m.

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