Georgia Defeats UCLA in Tuneup

In an event with a spectacle that overshadowed its own result, third-ranked Georgia defeated top-ranked UCLA, 196.95-195.725, in a women’s gymnastics meet Sunday at Pauley Pavilion.

Most of the 3,327 who braved the rain were there to see an exhibition after the meet that featured American Olympians Bart Conner and Kerri Strug and Bulgarian Olympians Krasimir Dunev, Ivan Ivanov and Jordan Jovtchev.

Strug, now a first-year student and an assistant coach at UCLA, had a line of autograph seekers that went up the stairs from the floor to the second level of the arena, and she signed for all of them.

Back on the floor at the dual meet, both teams performed well--especially considering it was each team’s second meet--and Karin Lichey of Georgia was the all- around winner with a score of 39.6. UCLA got strong performances from Stella Umeh (39.05) and Lena Degteva (39.0).

Still, neither coach seemed concerned about the result nor the rankings as much as their team’s performance.

“The preseason ranking means a lot because its from your peers--a vote by the coaches. But once the season begins it’s not important unless you’re right on the cusp of making the regionals,” said Valorie Kondos, UCLA’s coach. “Once you’re in the regionals, it’s all qualifying. You could lose all your dual matches and still win the national championship.”

Both coaches were interested in seeing an opponent they expect to see again at the NCAA championships in April. At the same time, they wanted to measure themselves.

“I think we won this with our fourth and fifth scores. The top three scores for both teams matched up really well, but I think we had a little more depth,” Georgia Coach Suzanne Yoculan said. “But [Georgia] exhibited no feeling of pressure and had great poise. It helped that the vault and the bars were at the same time--if we had been watching them on the bars, we could have been intimidated.”

Kondos said she is most concerned with her team coming out of the dual-meet season in good health and held out top freshman Heidi Moneymaker, who has flu.

“It was like the first Florida-Florida State football game,” Yoculan said. “You’re not really a loser if you lose a dual meet to a good team this early in the season. It’s the one in April that counts the most.”