Go west, U. gymnasts — to Cal

Finally something went right for the University of Utah gymnastics team this season.

In a difficult year filled with illnesses, injuries, chemistry issues, anxiety over hosting the national championships later this month and not one clean 2007 regular-season meet, the Utes got perhaps the best regional assignment they could have received on Monday.

With the NCAA announcing the six April 14 regional fields, seventh-ranked Utah will join No. 6 Nebraska and No. 18 Missouri at the West Regional at Cal-Berkeley — along with unranked Washington, Sacramento State and California as the region's fourth through sixth seeds — in vying to be one of the two teams advancing to the April 26-28 NCAA championships.

Utah is the only team to have qualified for every national championship since the Utes began gymnastics under the old AIAW in 1976. It has never competed at Cal Berkeley.

No. 23 BYU and No. 28 Utah State both travel to the North Central Regional at the University of Denver, while No. 32 Southern Utah — which finished as North Central's No. 7 team — will not have a full team at Denver but qualified two all-arounders (Elise Wheeler, Leah Sakhitab) and bars/beam specialist Kellie Dangerfield and the alternates in all four individual events (Shayla Garcia on vault and beam, Erin Morgan on bars and Tehani Keeno on floor).

The NCAA seeds the top 18 teams, ranked by their Regional Qualifying Scores, and distributes them to the nation's six regionals, where they meet the highest-ranking teams from each home region who are not in the top 18. At Denver, the seeded teams are No. 2 Georgia, No. 11 Penn State and No. 14 Denver. BYU is the fourth seed in that region, Minnesota No. 5 and Utah State No. 6.

"Those are great teams to compete against," said BYU coach Brad Cattermole, who qualified a team to the postseason for the 18th time. "We have to relax and lay it all out there. Ultimately it is going to come down to who hits their routines."

Utah State coach Ray Corn is delighted. "We are excited about going to Denver because it is like a home state for us," said Corn, who recruits heavily in that area. "I think Georgia is a shoo-in, and we hope to be a dark-horse candidate. We are coming off of a .1 point loss at the WAC Championships (to Sac State Saturday at SUU). We seem to be peaking and doing our best gymnastics at this time."

Utah coach Greg Marsden said his team was talking prior to Monday's practice, and most were hoping to draw the California regional. "So we're pleased with that," he said. The other most likely option would have been for the NCAA to send Utah to the West Virginia Regional.