April 8, 2008

Complete release (with updated gymnast profiles) in PDF Format

THIS WEEK
Saturday, Apr. 12 - at NCAA West Regional (Corvallis, Ore.), 6 p.m.

LAST WEEK
Idle since MPSF Championships on March 28

NOTES
TO RECAP: UC Davis won its first-ever Mountain Pacific Sports Federation team title, scoring a school-record 194.700 at the championship meet on March 28... The Aggies won or shared event titles in all four events plus the all-around... Senior Michelle Kulovitz and sophomore Michelle Bobonski each scored 9.800 to capture the vault win, sophomore Lida Gehlen hit a career-best 9.900 to defend her uneven bars title, sophomore Christine Tao shatterered her previous best to tie for first place on beam at 9.800, and junior Adee Schoffman hit a PR of 9.825 to earn a share of the floor title.

Sophomore Tanya Ho won the all-around championship with a 39.025 total, giving her more than a full-point edge over teammate Kulovitz, who was second at 38.875... Ho is just the fourth UC Davis gymnast to break the 39-point barrier in the all-around, joining Flora Bare (39.200 in 2003), Lynn Schwaebe (39.175 in 2003) and Ericka Ruelas (39.025 in 2008)... Ruelas, a five-time USAG champion and 11-time All-American, was announced in March as one of six 2008 inductees into the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame.

In addition to its first team title, UC Davis swept the conference's major awards... John Lavallee claimed the MPSF Coach of the Year award for the second straight season... Teri Lavallee was named as Assistant Coach of the Year... Kulovitz and Air Force's Abbey Rogers each were selected as MPSF Co-Gymnast of the Year... In its last two meets, UC Davis scored the No. 3 (194.275) and No. 1 (194.700) team scores in school history... The previous school record was a 194.350, set at the 2004 MPSF meet.

UP NEXT: Three Aggies earned individual at-large berths in the NCAA West Region meet, hosted by Oregon State at the Gill Colisuem Saturday... Ho advances as an all-arounder, while Gehlen and Kulovitz will compete in the meet as bars and floor specialists, respectively... This is the second straight year that UC Davis has qualified multiple gymnasts: Ho (vault) and Andi Dolinsky (floor) each made the trip to Berkeley in 2007... Ho is the first Aggie all-around qualifier to regionals since Bare and Ruelas achieved that feat in 2001... UC Davis qualified as a team in 1998, believed to be the only non-scholarship team to compete at an NCAA gymnastics regional.

Ho ranked 18th among West Region all-arounders with a 38.220 RQS... She did not reach the six-meet minimum for an RQS until posting a then season-best 38.875 at Sacramento State on March 7... Ho followed that performance with a 38.175 at Cal, then posted a career-high 39.025 at the MPSF Championship... She earned MPSF Gymnast of the Week honors three times in 2007.

Gehlen finished the regular season in a tie for 11th among the West bars leaders, compiling an RQS of 9.840... She scored 9.800 or better in 10 meets, including three 9.850s and the winning 9.900 at the conference meet... Gehlen also led the MPSF from wire-to-wire, with her final RQS well ahead of second-place Ho (9.765) on the final leaderboard... Gehlen, who earned an MPSF Gymnast of the Week award on January 28, has won a total of seven meet titles on bars during the year.

Kulovitz made a strong climb up the West Region floor rankings during the final month of the season, finishing T26th with an RQS of 9.790... She scored a career-high 9.875 in the February 29 home meet with Alaska Anchorage, then finished the year with floor marks of 9.800 (Mar. 16), 9.850 (Mar. 23) and 9.800 (Mar. 28)... Kulovitz was also the West Region alternate in the all-around, compiling a 38.070 RQS (21st).

Note: Oregon State will activate a live results link on its website. The address is http://www.osubeavers.com/liveStats/liveStats.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4700&KEY.

HEAD COACH JOHN LAVALLEE
"We really are ecstatic about how things turned out at the end of the season. To have an all-arounder and two event specialists qualify for the regional is really the icing on the cake. The last part of the season is really what shows the progress of the program, and the individual qualifiers are the product of the team having that type of success. It really does indicate the direction of the program."

"After the quad meet on the 23rd, we thought we were lifting the monkey off our backs. But the reality is that when we went out and did it again later that week, you could see a difference in how the team carried itself. They realized that, in fact, they're a pretty good team. For me, that visible change was a big step forward."