Florida Gators

Two University of Florida gymnasts took third overall in two different events in the NCAA Gymnastics Individual Event Finals, held Saturday in front of a Bob Devaney Sports Center crowd of 3,179.

A mark of 9.90 placed senior Corey Hartung (floor exercise) and sophomore Alicia Goodwin (uneven bars) on the third-place step of the awards stand.

Hartung, the only Gator to appear in the NCAA floor final each year of her collegiate career, finished third at 9.90. It is her highest finish in the NCAA floor final, as her previous best was a tie for fourth in 2007. The mark is her seventh 9.90 or better floor score of the season, including the collegiate-best 9.95 she earned in yesterday's NCAA Super Six team final. It is the second consecutive year a Gator took third in the floor final, as Nicola Willis was third in 2008. She finishes her Gator career with 10 All-America honors, second only to the 11 earned by Chrissy Van Fleet (1997-00) and Kristen Guise (1993-96).

Two Gators finished among the top eight in the uneven bars final. Goodwin, making her first appearance in the NCAA Event Final, put an exclamation point on her outstanding routine by sticking her double-front dismount. She shared third overall at 9.90.It was her third 9.90 or better mark of the season, just off her collegiate-best of 9.925 set Jan. 16. The tie for third matches the second-highest UF bar finish in the program's history (Christina McDonald, T-2^nd, 1991 and Kristen Guise, T-3^rd, 1995).

Junior Melanie Sinclair, making her third consecutive appearance in the NCAA bar final, shared seventh overall at 9.8625 in the final standings. Sinclair's routine looked strong, but her score was dinged by a step on her dismount. She used a double layout dismount for the majority of the season, but decided to up the difficulty of her routine by performing a double layout with a full twist for Saturday's final.

Vault competition for the NCAA Individual Event finals differs from regular season, as the gymnasts are required to perform two different vaults. Junior Maranda Smith was 12^th with her average of 9.4063, which was docked a point due to a neutral deduction, bringing it to 8.4063.

“I thought they did extremely well,” UF Head Coach Rhonda Faehn said. “My goodness, this was Alicia's first NCAA event final and she ends up finishing third. It was the most gorgeous bar routine she's done all season and she stuck that dismount. I'm so happy for her because she had to come back from sustaining that knee injury just a few short weeks ago. Melanie did a great job also, just like she's done all year. That was a gorgeous floor routine by Corey. What a way for her to finish out her career by taking third. Maranda had a little trouble on the landing of her second vault tonight. I think she's tired and hurting from competing three days in a row. But she was very positive and cheered on her teammates in the other finals tonight.

“I couldn't be more proud of these athletes,” she continued. “They all did a really great job.”

Saturday's titles went to a pair of seniors from the Southeastern Conference. The vault title was claimed by LSU senior Ashleigh Clare-Kearney with her winning average of 9.90. She shared the floor title with Georgia's Courtney Kupets as each posted marks of 9.95 Saturday. Kupets claimed sole possession of the evening's uneven bars (9.95) and balance beam (9.9875) titles. Kupets claimed a total of four event titles at the 2009 NCAA Championships, as she picked up her the NCAA all-around title Thursday in NCAA team qualifying competition.