NCGA E-Newsletter March 27, 2002

Wow! What an incredible championships

Ithaca College hosted the 2002 NCGA Championships and first off we would like to thank Rick and Kim Suddaby and everyone at Ithaca College for running a terrific event. Congratulations to the UW-La Crosse Eagles for successfully defending their National Title. Barbara Gibson's team put together their best meet of the year to win the meet over a SUNY-Cortland team that came in hitting on all cylinders. If the outcome were determined on number of hits, then Gary Babjack's Red Dragons would have easily walked away with the meet, as they hit 24 for 24. As it is, they had to settle for second place. A real battle unfolded for third place as the Gusties from Gustavus Adolphus were able to fend off the Ursinus Bears by a mere .025. The host school finished fifth followed by Springfield, Hamline and River Falls. Complete results and meet stories can be found on the NCGA website and at the official website of the 2002 championships

The all-around competition was won by newcomer Amanda Parker from Gustavus who showed that winning the Midwest Regional was no fluke. A couple of the best meets were put together by Ursinus senior Jumaah Johnson and Cortland's Carrie Costello to finish 2nd and 3rd respectively. Everywhere you looked there were some great performances, but the gutsiest came from SUNY-Brockport's sophomore Carrie Santore. Carrie hyper-extended both of her knees in practice on the Wednesday prior to the Friday meet. During Thursday's practice, she could only tumble a layout on floor and she could not dismount off beam. With both knees taped up and in pain she decided to compete Friday night and she barely watered down her routines, competing a double pike on floor and a pike tsuk vault. She hit 4 for 4 with two bad knees and made vault finals. Overall it was a very safe meet with no injuries. The only scare came when Kristen Grimmel from Ursinus slipped off the bars prior to her dismount during event finals. She got up to compete vault and floor where she placed 4th and 3rd respectively. The vault competition belonged to Amanda Parker who threw two handspring front tucks that where better than anyone else. The undsiputable queen of the uneven bars is Melissa Stanton from Hamline, who defended her national title by .225 over her closest competitor. A plug here for second place finisher Jennie Williams from Oshkosh who tossed an incredible geinger reminiscent of three time NCGA bar champion Sulekha Modi from Cortland. The year long leader on the beam would not be denied. Danin Squires from Cortland put together a 9.7 routine to take the lead into finals day, and followed it up with a 9.8 for a new NCGA beam record of 19.50. Being from an East Region school, Danin put at end to an 11 year run of Midwest school champions. On floor, it was Jumaah Johnson who closed out her NCGA career in style, a floor title to go along with a 2nd place all-around, 4th place bars and 5th place beam. Jumaah and Amanda took home 4 all-american awards each.

The Outstanding Senior Athlete Award, the NCGA's highest honor, was presented to Ellie Roscher from Gustavus Adolphus and Eduardo Ovalle was voted as the Coach of the Year. The 2003 championships were awarded to UW-Eau Claire and the 2004 championships to MIT. It has been quite unbelievable to watch this organization grow and become closer and closer, not just in competition, but in friendships and fun, as it should be. Thanks go to everyone on this list who have supported the NCGA and those who were in the stands at Ithaca. This will be the last e-mail sent out to this list for a while, unless some unexpected news happens in the NCGA. We will be updating the NCGA website with pictures and more stories as they become available. Please continue to check the website and spread the word about the NCGA. The 20th anniversary reunion of the NCGA is definitely on for 2004 at MIT in Cambridge/Boston. Help us try to reach all of the people that should be a part of that event.

Kind regards,

Eduardo

"No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth" - Robert Southey