NCAA Championships Blog - Event Finals
April 18, 2009
8:28 pm CT - More podium finishes for the Bruins, as Zamarripa finished tied for sixth and McCullough finished eighth on floor. McCullough had the biggest crowd response of the entire competition, with the whole arena clapping along to her routine. She hit her double pike mount, front full/front layout, but was a little short on her double tuck dismount, scoring 9.85. Ashleigh Clare-Kearney tied Kupets for first on floor with a 9.95.
Zamarripa was UCLA's lone competitor on balance beam, and after a few wobbles, she finished 11th with a 9.7625. Kupets won with a 9.9875, leaving her and Clare-Kearney as the only individual winners this year.
7:48 pm CT - Zamarripa was fourth up on floor and scored 9.8625, good for a tie for fourth at the halfway mark. She nearly stepped out of bounds on her double pike middle pass but covered beautifully to not only save the out of bounds but minimize the deduction with what the judges could have perceived as a choreographed move. Courtney Kupets once again has the mark to shoot for with a 9.95. Penn State's Brandi Personett gave her a run for her money with a full-twisting double layout but had other deductions elsewhere, scoring 9.8875.
7:26 pm CT - Senior Ariana Berlin, competing in her first-ever event finals, was the 16th and last competitor on uneven bars and needed to score 9.95 to match leader Courtney Kupets of Georgia. Berlin hit her elements, including a piked Jaeger, but may have been short a little on a handstand. She stuck her full-in dismount to score 9.8875, good for a tie for fifth place and a spot on the podium. Kupets's 9.95 held up for the win. Vanessa Zamarripa finished in a tie for eighth on vault to also reach the podium. LSU kept the vault title in the Tiger family, as Ashleigh Clare-Kearney won with a 9.9 average. Her first vault earned a 9.9875. Last year's champion, Susan Jackson, also of LSU, placed second with a 9.8938.
7:00 pm CT - Vanessa Zamarripa was the fourth competitor of the night on vault. The nation's top-ranked vaulter had scored three perfect 10s on vault during the season, but with event finals requiring two different vaults, she did not have two 10.0 start value vaults. She performed a Yurchenko layout full, worth a 10.0, for her first vault and had impeccable form, height and distance but took a hop back for a 9.8875. Her second vault was a Yurchenko layout, valued at 9.8. She once again got huge height and distance with a good landing and ended up with a final two-score average of 9.7813, which tied her for second place at the halfway mark.
5:45 pm CT - The competitors are warming up for the individual event finals. You can follow the scoring live HERE or watch the live video feed HERE.
Competing for the Bruins tonight are Vanessa Zamarripa on vault, beam and floor; Ariana Berlin on bars; and Brittani McCullough on floor. Zamarripa is the fifth competitor on vault, the 10th on beam and the fourth on floor. Berlin is last on bars, and McCullough is second-to-last on floor. Brittani just did a dance-through on floor, and after her big dance section, just as she did her finger snap, Georgia's Courtney Kupets, who was standing nearby, exclaimed, "She's fierce!" Now Vanessa is trying to do Kupets' choreography on floor and got a high-five from the all-around champ when she finished her dance-through.
Earlier today, at the tournament banquet, the All-Americans were honored. Five Bruins earned a total of 15 All-America honors - 5 for Zamarripa (1st-team in the all-around, vault, beam and floor; 2nd-team on bars), 4 for Berlin (1st-team in the all-around and bars, 2nd-team on vault and floor), 4 for Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs (2nd-team in the all-around, vault, bars and floor), and 1 each for McCullough (1st-team on floor) and Niki Tom (2nd-team on floor). All five are first-time All-Americans.
Zamarripa is one of just six Bruins ever to earn five All-America honors in a season and the first freshman to do so since Tasha Schwikert in 2005. The other Bruins with five All-America honors in a season are Schwikert (2005), Jamie Dantzscher (2003 and 2002), Onnie Willis (2001), Lena Degteva (2000) and Heidi Moneymaker (1999)
Congratulations also go to the 12 Bruins who made the Director's Honor Roll in Winter Quarter - Kaelie Baer, Ariana Berlin, Tauny Frattone, Aisha Gerber, Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, Tiffany Hyland, Talia Kushynski, Brittani McCullough, Alyssa Pritchett, Mizuki Sato, Niki Tom and Vanessa Zamarripa.