Utes slide in

While the Utes' beam set produced no score higher than Postell's 9.85, Marsden's last-day insert into the lineup, senior Gabi Onodi, who fell at the regional, came back with a strong 9.80 in the second spot despite what she called a dislocated rib. "I was hurting really bad. All I could think of was the pain," she said. It hurt to breathe, so she tried to breathe as little as possible during the routine, her only appearance of the day.

"I knew we needed it, and I knew Greg was trusting me to do this routine."

After the meet, she said it was feeling better, and she'd be fine for tonight.

Utah has won 10 national team titles, though none since 1995.

NOTES: These championships will be broadcast on tape delay Saturday, May 6, at 11 a.m. MDT on CBS . . . Utah hosts the NCAA championships in 2007, April 26-28 . . . Some 300 Ute fans made the trip to Corvallis. Utah usually has the largest contingent for a team from a road school at nationals. The team T-shirt this year is gray with a red stylization of a gymnast on the front, but many fans wore crimson shirts, and some wore shirts from past championships . . . Prior to their departure for Corvallis Monday, there was discussion in the Ute gym about whether anyone could get five days' worth of needs into carry-on baggage. Associate coach Megan Marsden said she couldn't even get all of her shoes into carry-on baggage . . . One LSU fan on Thursday wore a long, gold, patterned sheet-like wrap/dress and a furry tiger nose and led cheers for her bunch, and one man was decked in purple from head to shoe.

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E-mail: lham@desnews.com