Neff's back finally feeling better

When Stephanie Neff first arrived on the University of Utah campus, she felt OK. Then after a week of gymnastics practice, her back hurt.

"It was so sore that it would hurt when I would walk. It hurt when I did anything," Neff said Monday, "so I went to the doctor, and they said that I'd had it but didn't know it." It was all from over-use.

What she'd had was a couple of stress fractures and a bulging disk in her back.

Now, almost a year and a half later, Neff still has to be careful, but she's doing well enough on floor to be ranked 25th nationally, tied with teammate Jessica Duke with 9.825 averages, and she is at least able to think about doing more events soon.

She's training all four events, still learning a new vault and able to do all of her beam set except for training her series, which still makes the back hurt.

"Bars, I should be (back) soon because I'm doing my whole bar routine," she said. "Vault I could be, too; I just recently started doing my vault on the regular landing surface. I think the last thing I'll get into is beam, but it's just my series. I do everything else every day."

"I think eventually she'll have a chance to compete some bars for us," said Utah coach Greg Marsden, who did use her on bars a little late last season. "She's becoming more and more consistent there, and it was really one of her strengths coming into the program."

"I won bars at nationals," Neff said, recalling her time in club gymnastics, 2006, when she was also the runner-up for all-around at junior nationals.

"And then I struggled a little last year because I couldn't swing because of my back."

Partly because of her back last season, Neff perfected front tumbling, and she still does a unique double-front somersault and all front tumbling in her floor routine.

"Like, no one does it, and that's one of my favorite passes to do," she said. "It's not, like, that hard for me."

She says she's able to do a double-back pike and other back tumbling.

"It's just that I'm more consistent going forward be- cause I like tumbling forward better," she said. "It's just fun to do. It's fun and easy and gives me some bonus."

BASKETT CASE: Ute junior Kristina Baskett was looking forward to training all four events Monday, finally starting to feel some relief from the rib pain that plagued her all last week.