First of all, my headline is slightly misleading as the Utah Utes women's gymnastics team is expected to finally arrive in Minneapolis in time for tomorrow night's crucial NCAA regional gymnastics meet, but they have had major complications.First of all, they were to leave Utah on Thursday, but the team's flight to Minneapolis was scraped due to high winds.
But, coach Greg Marsden told Linda Hamilton of "The Deseret Morning News" in Salt Lake City that team would reroute through Billings, Mont., today to make the North-Central meet by Saturday.
But, there is a catch-they are expecting eight inches of snow in Minneapolis on Saturday. And, the flight might not be able to land, at least not on time!
Other teams at the team include Arkansas, Arizona and Iowa. One would expect they had their share of travel problems too.
Utah is ranked #2 with a 12-1 record.
Marsden told the SLC newspaper that (referring to the weather mishaps): "It's not ideal, but we'll make the most of it."
Practice was scheduled for this afternoon. A poster on collegegymfans.com reported that Arizona's team came in late Thursday night.
The Utes squad features the nation's top-ranked collegiate gymnast Ashley Postell and reigning 2006 bars champion Kristina Baskett.
The Utes also feature the likes of Nina Kim, Jessica Duke and Daria Bijak.
I will update the results to see if this meet does indeed manage to make it through all the weather problems. Minnesota is known for winter storms, but in April in the age of global-warming?
The NCAA gymnastics meets at the regional level are not televised_for reasons which are not entirely clear, much to the disappointment of college gymnastics fans like myself, and it has been a matter of concern for quite some time.
Useful Links:
http://www.deseretmorningnews.com
http://www.collegegymfans.com
http://utahutes.cstv.com
Ironically, this entry had its own problems including my inability to get an image of Postell or Baskett posted here without something going wrong. I can vouch that the photo is of a Utah gymnast, but just who it is or when it was taken is not known!
UPDATE ONE: The internet rumor mill is that the Utes just landed in Minnesota, but they came in on two separate planes!
UPDATE TWO: And, for all their troubles, the Utes prevailed! The other school which qualified for nationals in Athens, Ga., with a second-place finish in Minnesota was the University of Arkansas. Utah scored a 196.95 and Arkansas scored a 196.25
Other regional qualifiers from the other regional meets included top-ranked Georgia, Florida, UCLA, LSU, Oklahoma and Stanford.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment