One night after the greatest comeback Utah coach Greg Marsden could ever remember, the Utes did the same thing. This team of injuries and illnesses and gymnasts who "aren't known internationally," said Marsden, won the biggest prize in college gymnastics in one of the hardest-fought championship meets by the closest of margins.

The Utes went into their final event, the floor exercise, on their home floor at the Huntsman Center .6 behind defending-champion Georgia and needing 49.25 - a high score - to finish ahead of Alabama, which had already finished its meet the rotation before and had 196.35 points.Utah had just fallen twice on beam. On Thursday in the preliminaries, Utah fell four times on beam, its starting event, and came back to be second in the evening session with the third-best score of the day (12 teams).

Friday night, they held it to two falls and had to be better than ever on floor.

And they had to do it with sophomore Sandy Woolsey starting things off because Jen Mercier's knee was too sore to compete. "Sandy hasn't tumbled in two months (because of her shin splints)," said Marsden. She knew before the meet she'd have to go on both floor and vault. "I had nobody else. I go to Sandy and say, `Could you do it cold?' She started us out on both vault (9.75, the first performer of the night) and floor (9.775). "In fact, she went all-around for the first time since Feb. 7, and scored 38.525 - cold.

"It was a surprise to me," Woolsey said, "but I was happy to do it. I've done it since I was yea-high. As long as I can be there mentally, I'm OK. It was my last meet (of the season)," so she didn't have to worry about soreness.

"If our first person were, say, .1 lower, we would have been out. Every person got every single tenth they could," said Ute Suzanne Metz, who sprained an ankle a week ago but did four events both Thursday and Friday nights and had an all-around total of 39.55 Friday night. That would have been one of her best of the season.

Next-to-last up on the floor, Metz posted 9.9, and Aimee Trepanier, last up of the championship for Utah, not knowing she needed to score 9.85 to tie Alabama, came up with 9.9 to give Utah the victory.

"No I did not know," said Trepanier. None of the Utes knew how close it was. She said she'd felt strong and confident the whole meet, and floor was no different.

"Our overall attitude going into the meet," said Metz, "was be agtessive, have fun and fight back. It's an attitude we've been working on a long time with our younger gymnasts - go out like we know we're going to do it."

Utah won its eighth NCAA championship and ninth national team title overall in a year when it came into the finals with its lowest-ever seed, fifth place, finishing with 196.40 points.

Georgia was in a position to win the meet but finished up on beam while Utah was on floor. First up, Leah Brown fell. Next up, Leslie Angeles wobbled and fell. Lori Strong scored 9.825, but Agina Simpkins, who was in the running for the national all-around championship the night before, came down with severe dehydration cramps just before her turn. Georgia coach Suzanne Yoculan said she thought of changing but kept Simpkins in the lineup, and she fell. The third fall knocked Georgia down to third place with 195.85 points, and Simpkins went directly to the hospital for fluids.

"We blew it," said Yoculan, claiming no excuses other than going all-out as is Georgia's trademark.

Michigan finished fourth at 195.15, UCLA fifth at 194.975 and Florida sixth on Super Six night at 194.85.

It was such an incredibly close meet, all three coaches, who've feuded in the past, had nothing but sincere flattery for each other's teams.

In fact, the teams were the same way. When the Utes found out they'd won and began jumping up and down, Georgia as a team rushed across the floor mat to hug and congratulate them, and Alabama joined in.

"They went over spontaneously," said Yoculan.

"I just felt a tremendous amount of respect for what (Utah) did," said Yoculan, adding she'd followed Utah's progress all season and was aware how big a stride the Utes had made. Yoculan called it one of the most exciting finishes she'd been a part of in 10 years at nationals. "A super competition. I feel fortunate we were able to participate and be in the running at the end," Yoculan said.

"We are so similar, I almost wish we could have tied," said Marsden, comparing his team that most people had counted a long shot to the Tide, which rose above thoughts of its own fans that this was only a rebuilding year with so many young people and no bona fide stars. "They had an incredible meet," said Marsden.

"I can't be more proud of the job these ladies did," said Alabama coach Sarah Patterson. "It's just a shame on a night like this someone has to finish second. I just think Utah did an incredible job with their best performance of the year." Patterson said Utah's crowd tried to cheer the Tide up when it heard the crushing news of its defeat that tied for the narrowest in NCAA history.

It tied with the .05 that Georgia beat UCLA in 1989 at Georgia when the Bulldogs were - ironically - the No. 5 seed.

All three teams went without an error until the final rotation - and Alabama never made one mistake.

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Marsden compared this improbable title by a team without Missy, Shelly and Kristen to the one in 1983 when Utah lost defending NCAA all-around champion Sue Stednitz to a blown knee at the regional and had few other big-name people but won by 1.35 points over Arizona State.

"This group knows there was a point in the preseason when we didn't even know if we would be able to build a team," said Marsden, talking about personal problems and preseason surgeries. The bad luck continued all season with several gymnasts suffered several setbacks apiece. Kelli Wolsey ended up performing the last six weeks of the season on a broken big toe, Mercier came back from knee surgery, Missy Wells-Taylor had several problems including kidney-stone attacks this week. The list went on forever.

"It was a roller coaster ride. Even 24 hours ago, we thought we were out of this thing," Marsden said, remembering that awful start on the beam with four falls Thursday. "We were so far out of this thing 24 hours ago, who would have ever thought we could wind up national champions?" said Marsden.

Utah started strongly on vault - it won the blind draw Thursday night to gain the favored Olympic rotation - with 49.525, highest score of any team in any event in the two days of the meet and just .25 off the school record. It scored 49.325 on bars, its best of the season, then fell to 48.3 on beam but came back with that 49.25 on floor.

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