When I first read this Saturday I was stunned. How did we fall so far after starting as the overall #2 seed? We were in our own house! Anyone got any perspective on this? I know we started out on Thursday with lots of errors. Then, into the dumper by Friday! It just doesn't make sense.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -----Original Message----- From: "Shane Ford" <[email protected]> Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:07:19 To: GATORNEWS<[email protected]> Subject: [gatornews] [SUN]: UF finishes 5th at NCAA gymnastics [Dooley] UF finishes 5th at NCAA gymnastics By Pat Dooley Gainesville SUN Staff writer Published: Saturday, April 24, 2010 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Friday, April 23, 2010 at 9:24 p.m. By the time UCLA won the NCAA gymnastics national title Friday night, Florida's season had been over for a half an hour. Click to enlarge Florida gymnast Alicia Goodwin performs on uneven parallel bars during the 2010 NCAA Collegiate Women's Gymnastics Championships at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center on Friday, April 23, 2010. Aaron E. Daye/The Gainesville Sun Crippled by a poor showing in the first event of the night, the Gators had to wait in the locker room while the squeals of victory echoed throughout the O'Connell Center. Florida had a bye for the final rotation but had said bye-bye to any dreams of a national championship earlier in the evening. Instead, it was top-seeded UCLA winning the championship with a score of 197.725, beating second-place Oklahoma by .475. Alabama was third and Stanford fourth. "It's hard to believe this is real," said UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field. "Is it real?" Florida's streak of four straight top four finishes ended as UF finished a disappointing fifth - ahead of only Utah among the teams competing in the Super Six - in front of a crowd of 5,386. The Gators had to rally Thursday night to make the finals but struggled again on the bars, their first event for the second night in a row. "The youth of our team really showed this weekend," said Florida coach Rhonda Faehn. "It was a mistake here, a mistake there. I'm proud of the fight in the team. But you could definitely see it all weekend long. "Nothing seemed to bother them all season long, but all weekend I could see a different look on their faces. I kept telling them to relax and enjoy it but I could see they were uptight. They got caught up in really wanting to win instead of doing what they normally would do." One night after falling on the bars, Ashanee Dickerson kicked off the night for Florida with a 9.85 on the event. But Marissa King had a series of mistakes to score an 8.55 and UF counted a 9.7 from Maranda Smith. That left UF with a score of 49.125 and a huge deficit to overcome. "That was a surprise," Faehn said. "That was a tough start. When you are competing with six phenomenal teams, you can't afford to have a rough event." Although things got better for the Gators, they didn't for King, a freshman who has been one of UF's stars this season. She fell off the beam and stepped out of bounds on the floor exercise. "Marissa had a real off night," Faehn said. "I feel bad for her. I think it surprised her on the bars and it just kind of snowballed." The bright spot of the night for Florida was another freshman. Dickerson tied for first on the floor exercise with UCLA's Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs with a 9.95 score. That helped Florida record the second best score in the event, UF's last of the night. But the hole was too deep. "We've come back before," said senior Amanda Castillo. "UCLA was just the better team today. We just put too much pressure on ourselves." The floor was the one event where Florida looked like the team that had performed well enough to be the second seed in the national meet. "They have to take it and take a deep look inside and analyze what happened," said Faehn. "The key is to learn from this." Contact Pat Dooley at 352-374-5053 or at [email protected]. You can listen to The Pat Dooley Show weekdays from 4-6 p.m. on 104.9 FM. And follow at Twitter.com/Pat_Dooley. -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us Subscription settings: http://groups.google.com/group/gatornews/subscribe?hl=en -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us
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