Falls on beam doom vaunted Gym Dogs

All week long, Georgia coach Suzanne Yoculan has downplayed her team's readiness.

Through three rotations Friday night, it looked like she and her Georgia Gym Dogs were as strong as ever. Even when last year's NCAA all-around champion, Courtney Kupets, stepped out of bounds during her floor exercise, the Gym Dogs still led Utah's Red Rocks by 0.250 points.

Then came a disastrous beam rotation, which ultimately did Georgia in and resulted in their tenth of a point loss to Utah.

"It won't happen again," Yoculan shouted as she entered the post-meet interview room. "Two falls on beam ... won't happen again this season."

Kupets followed up her missed floor routine by missing her difficult back-layout mount followed by a handspring to another layout. She never got the chance, slipping off the beam before she could even finish her routine.

"She hit that mount in warmups and has missed it maybe twice in 200 times," Yoculan said of Kupets.

What made matters worse for the Gym Dogs was that another reliable all-arounder, Tiffany Tolnay, slipped off the beam just ahead of Kupets.

"Tiffany has been sick all week," Yoculan said, "so she changed her dismount from her usual double back and lost focus during her routine."

"Nerves got to me," Tolnay said. "We rely a lot on team chemistry, to pick each other up when one of us gets down. We don't let mistakes get to us."

Even with the meet loss, Yoculan is optimistic about the rest of the season.

"If we had been playing anyone else but Utah, we would have won this meet," she said.

"I thought Utah's depth was a little weaker than ours in spots," she said. "I think the championship will be won on the fourth- and fifth-place scores."

Georgia doesn't have much time to dwell on this setback in the drive for a fourth consecutive national title. The Gym Dogs travel to Palo Alto, Calif., to take on No. 5 Stanford in a meet on Sunday, then it's back to Athens, Ga., and the difficult SEC regular season.

Georgia is now 15-5 in season-opening meets. The Gym Dogs had beaten the Red Rocks eight straight times head-to-head.

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E-mail: jringwood@desnews.com