"This year just feels like a new year. It feels good in the gym — good practices — it's just building more confidence each week making routines and trying to improve on all the little things," DiLuzio said.

She stresses quality over quantity in practice, and the steps on vault landings are more mental than physical. "It's training yourself to find something to look for, try to find the landing," she said.

DiLuzio's also had success in another event. She is ranked No. 11 nationally in floor exercise, highest on the team. "She's a very strong tumbler, and she's very clean," said Marsden. "There's not a lot of places for deductions. Everything is done very well and is big."

Hearing her ranking brought out a brief smile.

"I didn't even know that," she said. "I just try to make my routine for the team, help the team out. Some meets people come up to me afterward, 'Did you see your score? That's such a good score.' And I'm like, 'What did I get?"'

She critiques her own routines more harshly than judges.

"I'm very hard on myself," she said. "A lot of people are trying to help me with it, but I think it's good because you're not satisfied with an OK routine. It pushes you to fix the little things and to try to get that better score."

Despite that, she sees 2008 as positive.

"I still have things that I need to improve on, but I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far," she said.

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E-mail: lham@desnews.com