DEL.ICIO.USGym Dogs’ Kupets wins NCAA all-around title
For the Journal-Constitution
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Lincoln, Neb. — While Georgia’s preliminary competition in the NCAA Gymnastics Championships was far from flawless Thursday, senior Courtney Kupets was perfect as she scored a 10.0 on the balance beam to seal her third NCAA all-around title.
Kupets finished with a 39.8 to win the award and become the first gymnast since Kentucky’s Jenny Hansen (1993-95) to win three NCAA all-around titles.
AP
Georgia’s Courtney Kupets performs her floor exercise during a preliminary round of the NCAA gymnastics championships in Lincoln, Neb., Thursday. Kupets posted her fifth perfect score of the season, matched the highest all-around score of all time and led four-time defending champion Georgia to the team finals at the NCAA Women
Her score also tied Hansen’s NCAA record for the all-around winner she set in 1995.
Kupets’ effort helped Georgia score a 197.45 to qualify for Friday night’s Super Six finals in the Bob Devaney Sports Center. Also qualifying out of the afternoon session were SEC rivals Florida (196.375) and LSU (196.3).
Failing to advance from the afternoon group were Stanford (196.225), Penn State (196.1) and Oklahoma (195.825).
Alabama qualified for out of the night session with a 197.025 followed by Arkansas (196.95) and Utah (196.625). UCLA tied Utah but lost the tiebreaker, when the sixth scores are counted. Oregon State (195.35) and Illinois (195.05) also failed to qualify.
In addition to the perfect mark on beam, Kupets scored 9.95s on the uneven bars and floor and a 9.9 on the vault.
“She reminds me of an angel with wings when she comes down on her landings,” Georgia coach Suzanne Yoculan said. “She is a joy to watch, so soft and graceful. She makes it all seem so effortless.”
In addition to claiming the all-around title, Kupets’ scores qualified her for Saturday’s event finals on every event. She has won NCAA championships on vault (2007), uneven bars (2006) and the balance beam (2006). She couldn’t compete in the NCAA Championships last year because of an Achilles tendon injury.
As dominant as she was Thursday, Kupets acknowledged that the past several weeks have had their low points as the pressure of facing her final collegiate meet led to some rough practices.
“I got down on myself, and that made it worse,” she said. “I got some negativity going, and I’m not good with negativity, and that made me even more frustrated with myself.”
Kupets got so frustrated she tried to talk Yoculan into letting her sit out of the all-around at the regional competition. Yoculan would have none of that, and Kupets went on to win the all-around, vault and uneven bars titles.
That success put Kupets back on track for nationals as her expectations led to big scores, not meltdowns.
“She is a perfectionist at everything, and she puts a lot of pressure on herself at everything she does,” Yoculan said.
The Gym Dogs didn’t need her perfection to advance to tonight’s competition because they had already done well enough to qualify by the time she started her beam routine, but the performance didn’t hurt either as Georgia wanted to finish strong.
Balance beam was Georgia’s downfall at the SEC Championships when its first two competitors fell, giving Alabama the break it needed to snatch the title from Georgia.
Georgia opened Thursday with a fall from Hilary Mauro (9.325), but improved instead of collapsing, thanks to Kupets’ perfect score and other high marks. Georgia finished with a 49.55 on the event, tying its season high.
“I was thinking ‘thank God we had that happen to us at SECs’ because everyone here has experienced that,” Yoculan said. “It’s tough when that happens, and at SECs we couldn’t recover from it. … We do have a beam team very capable of competing under pressure, and we saw that today.”
Even so it will take a better effort for Georgia to win its fifth consecutive title tonight, Yoculan said.
“We better improve on what we did, that wasn’t a championship performance from us,” Yoculan said. “We left a lot of points out there on vault, floor and bars.”
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
