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Show THE DAILY UTAH CHRONICLE Monday, February 5, 2007 8 FORD SHINES BRIGHTEST FOR VICTORIOUS RED ROCKS ments," Arkansas head coach Mark Cook said. "We built a lot of character...hopefully we go home, lick our wounds, regroup and go from there." Arkansas was not the only team that had mishaps. BYU also had a gymnast who landed on her face during bars, and continued from Page 7 many of the Southern Utah gymnasts had falls during all show for her efforts. "She was on a mission to- four of their rotations. Utah was not exempt from night," Marsden said. "I asked Daile (VanPatten), 'Could you costly falls, cither. Besides Bascome to the rest of our meets?'" kett and DiLuzio's trouble on Ford was not the only Red beam, Ashley Postell experienced her own set of hiccups Rock to get off to a hot start. The entire vault lineup came Friday night. After the 10-time Ail-Ameriout with plenty of energy, and that energy led to a team per- can scored a 9.875 on vault, she formance where nobody scored stumbled to her knees on her bars dismount. Postell then fell less than a 9.775. The rest of the teams compet- off the beam while trying to ing in the four-team meet did reinsert a front-back into her not experience the same suc- routine for the first time since bruising her heel in preseason. cess. "She'll be fine, it's just an off Arkansas, which started out on bars, had two scary moments night for her," Ford said. during its opening rotation as Despite PostelTs mishaps and Michelle Stout—who also com- the Utes1 inability to get through peted at Southern Tier Gym- a beam rotation cleanly, there nastics—completely missed were a few positive notes for the top bar on her release and the Utes on Friday. plummeted some 10 feet before Baskett was able to work a face-planting on the mat below. full-in into her first pass on Casey Jo Magee followed floor, and she also worked a half Stout, and she also experienced twist into her vault routine. The a dangerous moment as she lost U sophomore performed both her grip while building speed upgrades like she has been dofor her dismount. Magee hurled ing them all season. through the air like a lug nut Sarah Shire also made a strong wrench. Much to her and the case for why she should stay in crowd's relief, the Razorback the starting lineup on vault and freshman walked away from the beam by scoring a 9.85 and 9.80, scare moments later. respectively. A big reason for Arkansas' Notes: Daria Bijak proved she shaky start was the team's night- is closer to fully recovering from mare trek to Utah for the meet. knee surgery. She did a beam A commercial aircraft mal- routine in exhibition for the function stranded the team out- first time Friday. With Stephaside of Dallas for most of Thurs- nie Neff doing an exhibition day night and Friday morning. bar routine, every Red Rock has The Razorbacks didn't even now performed to some extent make it to Utah until just be- for the Utes this season. Before fore warm-ups started at 5 p.m. Friday, Postell had never missed Despite ail the troubles, the Ra- two or more routines during zorbacks still finished in second the same meet in her entire collegiate career. place with a score of 193.625. t.p\zza(a) "Next time we will try to make chronicle.utah.edu some different travel arrange- Best in the Mountain West Women swimmers drown Cougars to capture fourth straight MWC crown Tony Pizza Chronicle Asst. Sports Editor Back in mid-October, the U women's swimming and diving team co-captain Marissa Martin expressed her confidence in the team's chances of going through the regular season undefeated. As Martin stood arm-in-arm with her father, Gary Martin, and was introduced to the capacity crowd on Senior Night at the U Natatorium Friday night, she and her teammates had just one obstacle left before reaching that goal. The only problem for the Utes was that their fiercest rival was poised to accomplish the very same feat with a win on Utah's home turf. In the closest meet either team has competed in this season, the Utes clinched their fourthstraight regular season Mountain West Championship with a nailbiting 157.5-142.5 win over BYU. "This was the most exciting dual meet I've been a part of in my time coaching/1 U head coach Mike Litzinger said. "This was the perfect way to send (the seniors) out with an undefeated season and conference title. To close it with a win over our rivals was sweet for us." Freshman Annie VanLeeuwen and sophomore Jennifer Fredsall have complemented the dynamic senior duo of Amber Walter and Alison Mclnturff all season long in the four-person 400-meter freestyle relay race. On Friday night, that team clinched the win for the women Utes by swimming a 3:26.27, which narrowly edged out BYU's top relay team by .18 seconds in the final race of the meet for the women. BYU and Utah started the meet out trading punches with BYU winning a race and Utah countering with a win in the next race. After the Utes and Cougars split wins in the first four events, Walter helped the Utes take control of the meet by placing first in three of the next four swimming events. Her first win came in the 100 breaststroke, which she swam in 1:03.29. Walter then proved why she is considered a favorite to capture a second MWC Swimmer of the Year Award by sweeping the 50 and 100 freestyle sprints, with times of 23.42 and 51.10, respectively. Sprinkled between Walter's victories was a win in the 200 fly by Fredsall and a i-meter diving victory by senior Kelsey Patterson. BYU countered Utah's wins by reeling off wins of its own in five of the next six events. One of those wins included a tie for first place in the 200 IM between BYU's Angela Goodson and Utah's Adrienne Coburn to set up a fervent finale to the meet. With Utah's lead rapidly shrinking, the experienced freestyle relay team from the U finally sunk BYU's chances of spoiling the Utes' three-year undefeated streak in conference play. "The girls were led by the seniors tonight and really stepped it up," Litzinger said. "Hats off to BYU. They did a great job and will be very tough at the conference championships." "* For the U men, the season didn't exactly end as the men had hoped, but they did put up a solid fight before falling to BYU 179-121 in the end. Although the Ute men were able to win two of the first five events, BYU built a sizeable lead by taking two podium spots in all of the first five races of the meet. When Utah started securing two podium spots over the middle portion of the meet, BYU claimed a first-place finish in all five of those races, including a first- and second-place finish in the 50 free. However, Utah did not go away quietly as the Utes took home a first- and third-place finish in the 200 breaststroke, followed by a first- and second-place finish by Marco Ferraro and Jeremy Clark in the 500 free. With the crowd roaring and the Ute men on the threshold of taking the lead in the meet, BYU dashed the Utes' hopes by finishing first in the final four events of the meet, including a sweep of the top two podium spots in the 100 fly and 200 IM. "I'm proud of the guys," Litzinger said. "BYU is a very good team and we competed well against them all night. This team never gave up and that has us ready to show what we can do at the conference championships in two weeks." The MWC Championships will take place between Feb. 21 and Feb. 24 in Oklahoma City, Okla. Notes: With the win over BYU, the Ute women have now won 18 consecutive meets overall and 23 MWC meets in regular season competition. 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