BOISE — The most beaten-up team in Utah gymnastics history still had enough to get to the national championships for the 25th straight time. Still has enough to think it can survive to the Super Six. Still has enough to be a reasonable candidate for yet another NCAA team title.
Despite three season-ending injuries to athletes, a season-ending injury to an assistant coach and a season-ending illness, here the Utes are in Boise, ready to challenge again. Competition in the 12-team 2000 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships starts Thursday at 1 p.m. in the Boise State University Pavilion.
The Utes are far from favored, but few totally overlook them.
"The last two times we won (1994 and '95), we won with a lot of injuries and a lot of problems," says Utah coach Greg Marsden. "But we won because we did a nice job and the other teams made mistakes."
Which is how most gym championships are won, though a few have gone to teams that simply blew everyone else out of the water.
"We're not deluding ourselves thinking we're going into championships this year as one of the couple favorites," says Marsden, "but with that said . . ."
"I wouldn't count them out," BYU coach Brad Cattermole says, finishing Marsden's thought. Cattermole has seen most of the top teams and still thinks highly of the Utes, whom his team came close to upsetting Feb. 4 in the Huntsman Center in Utah's first meet after losing 1999 NCAA all-around and beam champion Theresa Kulikowski to a torn ACL.
Utah, fourth in the final regular-season rankings after a strong late-season run, competes in Thursday's first preliminary session. Utah is the nation's only team to have qualified to nationals in every year of the program's existence. Florida had until this year.
Also in the early session are BYU, two-time defending NCAA champion Georgia, Alabama, Oregon State and Louisiana State. In the 7 p.m. session are favored UCLA, Michigan, Nebraska, Penn State, Iowa State and West Virginia. The individual all-around championship will be decided by late Thursday.
The top three team finishers in each of Thursday's prelims move on to Friday night's Super Six finals, when the team title will be decided. On Saturday night, individuals will vie for NCAA hardware in vault, bars, beam and floor events.
Of the opening session, Marsden says, "If we go in and compete well, we'll get through it (and advance to the Super Six). I'm really not concerned, if we're on. If we have misses, we can't expect to get through.
"I really think that if we compete the way we have in the last three meets, we'll move on to finals," Marsden said, but he added, "Any one of the six teams (in the first session), if they get on a roll, is capable of getting there. If we're on, we should move on. If not, it will be a very short meet."
He has gained much confidence in this club that lost its two best all-arounders (Kulikowski, Shannon Bowles) and best recruit (Erin Prewitt) in the first three weeks of the season and which will be without sophomore Kylee Wagner for the third meet because of mononucleosis. In an emergency, she might be asked to vault, but she hasn't the stamina to even train satisfactorily.
Still, the Utes have learned to deal with the absences, and aside from a couple mid-season meets, Marsden's been quite pleased. "We're where we feel like we can be. I just feel like they've matured a lot," he says, blaming the "constantly changing lineup. The last half of the season, they grew comfortable with what their roles on the team are."
"I feel very confident this team is physically and mentally at a good place."
Seniors Denise Jones, Angelika Schatton, Ashley Kever and Jenny Schmidt, junior Theresa Wolf, sophomores Deidra Graham and Lindsey Tanner and freshman Kim Allan have all stepped up. Jones, Schatton and Graham have been consistent 39+ all-around scorers since losing Kulikowski. Since that injury Jones has scored 39+ eight times, Graham seven times and Schatton — who has been an all-arounder on seven times in her career — has done it in three of her last four meets.
Jones set her career high at 39.60, Graham at 39.575 and Schatton at 39.425 in the past two months. Wolf had 39.425 on Feb. 7, and Allan had 39.30 in her only all-around appearance on March 18. Schmidt is coming off a career-best 9.975 on bars at the regional, and Kever has hit a career-high 9.95 on beam three times and 9.925 on floor four times.
They will be cheered Thursday by the return of assistant coach Aki Hummel. When Marsden told his team Monday that Hummel would fly in Thursday, they cheered. Hummel broke a femur in six places in a March 26 skiing accident and was hospitalized for nearly a week and missed the regional meet.