Friday, January 6
Gainesville, FL
7:00 PM
Florida Gators
195.900
vs
190.80
Illinois
No. 6 Florida Gymnasts Defeat Illinois 195.90-190.80
Saturday, January 7, 2006 | Gymnastics
The No. 6 University of Florida gymnastics team (1-0, 0-0 SEC) opened the 2006 season with a 195.90-190.80 win over Illinois (0-1, 0-0 Big Ten) Friday evening in front of a Stephen C. O'Connell Center crowd of 3,369. Florida's team total marked a good start for the Gators, ranking as the third-highest opening score in school history.
The Gators worked hard during the off-season to increase the difficulty in their routines and UF Head Coach Rhonda Faehn was very pleased with how the Gators handled the additions. No falls were recorded among any of the Gators 24 competitive routines Friday evening.
“I was very pleased with their performance this evening,” Faehn said. “They achieved every goal that we set out for tonight. Our meet focus was on increasing their difficulty in just about every single routine that we put out tonight. Most routines were more difficult with one or two new skills. We hit six or seven (including exhibitions) on every event. We didn't have any falls tonight. Obviously there are some areas that need cleaning up, but we accomplished our objective to go out there and hit these new skills. I was very proud of them tonight.”
“It is a great start,” she continued. “Everyone is pumped up and excited knowing that they can hit these routines with the new skills. They want to get into practice and work on perfecting those skills, making them clean so that in our next outing we are doing the exact same thing, only making it better.”
Florida swept the event titles Friday, which includes two first-time Gators finishing one-two in the all-around. Freshman Corey Hartung became the first Gator freshman to win an all-around title in the season opener since Melissa Miller in 1986. Hartung tallied a 38.975 in the all-around, just edging sophomore Nicola Willis at 38.925. Willis, a member of the 2004 Great Britain Olympic Team, underwent surgery on her ankle and shoulder in 2005, keeping her out of Florida's competitive lineup.
Willis did share the evening's floor exercise title at 9.875 with sophomore Tiffany Murry. Willis became the first Gator to successfully hit a double layout in her opening tumbling pass Friday evening. Junior Savannah Evans shared third in the floor with Hartung at 9.80. Murry, who led the Gators on vault last season with her mark of 9.95, opened the season with a win on that event at 9.875. Evans was second at 9.825 while junior Katie Rue and Willis shared third at 9.80.
“It was wonderful to see Nicola out there. She's a competitor. You obviously don't become an Olympian without that fight to achieve, which she showed tonight,” Faehn said. “I wasn't surprised with Corey's all-around win because she is such a beautiful gymnast. Tiffany Murry really excelled tonight. Last year, she struggled in the first few meets but today she just came out and nailed every routine she did – winning vault and sharing the title on floor. That really showed that her hard work during the fall really paid off and she is coming into her own now.”
Junior Samantha Lutz claimed her second consecutive uneven bars title in her home arena, opening 2006 with a bars mark of 9.85. In the 2005 home finale, Lutz claimed a share of the NCAA Southeast Region uneven bars title by matching the team's season-best mark of 9.90. Three Gators shared second in Friday's bars standings at 9.80 – sophomore Ashley Reed, Hartung and Murry. Junior Breanne King opened the season with a win on the balance beam (9.825). She led UF on the event last year with her career-best mark of 9.95 and claimed four beam titles during the season. Lutz shared second on beam with Illinois' Julie Crall at 9.80.
Next up, the Gators travel to the site of the 2006 NCAA Championships for a quad meet in Corvallis, Ore. Florida will meet No. 13 Oregon State, No. 19 BYU and Iowa on Jan. 13 at 10 p.m. (ET) in OSU's Gill Coliseum.
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