March 5, 2007

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THIS WEEK
Mar. 9 - SEATTLE PACIFIC, 7 p.m.
Mar. 11 - at Sacramento State, 6 p.m.

LAST WEEK
Mar. 2 - at Boise State w/ OSU & SPU (3rd, 192.775).

NOTES
TO RECAP: The Aggies scored a season-best 192.775 to finish second in a four-team meet at Boise State... UC Davis finished more than four-tenths ahead of the host Broncos, marking the program's first win against BSU in 10 tries... The Aggies also beat Mountain Pacific Sports Federation rival Seattle Pacific, which scored 192.050 in the meet... The vault squad scored 48.775, matching the score at home vs. Air Force two weeks before... That mark ranks T2nd in school history, as this year's vaulters have now posted six of the program's top eight scores in school history... Junior Andi Dolinsky was the team's top finisher in a meet otherwise dominated by 11th-ranked Oregon State... Dolinsky finished 4th on floor with a 9.825 and added a career-best 9.725 on bars... Freshman Tanya Ho was the Aggies' top all-arounder, scoring 38.500 overall... She hit 9.775 on vault, a career-high 9.800 on bars and 9.775 on floor... Junior Carrie Lujan also enjoyed a strong overall meet... She tied her season best of 9.825 on vault and added a 9.650 on beam, 9.750 on FX... Friday's score lifted the team's regional-qualifying score (RQS) by a full point to 191.465, well ahead of SPU for the MPSF lead and just behind Cal State Fullerton (191.530) and California (191.635) on the regional leaderboard.

UP NEXT: UC Davis readies for its only two-meet weekend of the season... The Aggies face Seattle Pacific at home on Friday, then travel up the Yolo Causeway for a road meet at Sacramento State on Sunday... UC Davis has won five straight regular-season meets against SPU, last losing to the Falcons in a tri-meet at Cal State Fullerton late in 2004... However, SPU snapped the overall streak at last year's MPSF Championships, winning the conference title with a half-point edge over UC Davis... Junior Christie Chinaka was the highest Falcon event finisher in the most recent matchup, placing T7th on bars (9.775) at Boise last weekend... Furthermore, senior all-arounders Sarah Sullivan (38.550) and Debra Huss (38.500) were 5th and 6th, respectively.

Sunday's Causeway Classic pits two teams who have historically risen to the occasion with each other... All but one of the Hornet's top 10 all-time team scores have come in meets involving UC Davis, including last season's two duals... Last season, the Aggies' top two scores were in the Causeway duals, including a season-best 193.075 in Ray Goldbar's last home meet on March 17... Sac State is coming off a season-best 193.925 in a dual win over Penn Sunday... Junior Melissa Genovese finished 2nd in the all-around (38.925) and edged teammate Sara Williams on bars at 9.850... Williams and sophomore Tiffany Bass also scored 9.725 on vault to lead the Hornets to a season-best 48.450 in that event.

HEAD COACH JOHN LAVALLEE
"I think Friday's meet gives us a huge amount of confidence going into the final four meets. We have Seattle Pacific at home and Sac State in Sac on Sunday. It's a big weekend for us. Then we have to get through finals and get back on track for a very big home meet on the 23rd. We are in the middle of the hunt at this point. I think our performance on Friday will propel this team to the next level."

"Having two meets only changes things a little. This team is accustomed to training routines on back-to-back days in the gym. There's a little more to it when you have to raise your hand to the judge and the stress level is a higher at a meet. But physically, we're in very good shape. From a training standpoint, we go two or three hard days in a row so there is no physical difference. This will come down to a mental exercise for us, to know what we want to accomplish going in and to be able to keep our focus throughout the weekend. We've prepared for this weekend, so we have our heads screwed on straight. We're ready to go."

"We've been talking about catching these teams that are ahead of us. We caught Fullerton a couple of weeks ago. They've been ranked ahead of us consistently. We've been in the game against San Jose State twice. We're knocking on the door against these teams, and we caught another one. This will propel our team to realize that we can be in the gym with these teams, but more than that, we can outperform them. So we're pretty excited about what is going to occur over the next few weeks."