Utah Utes gymnastics: Utes can't unseat Georgia dynasty

"I'm actually not so sad like I thought (after a third-straight second place). We did the best we could. We're happy," said junior Nina Kim, who posted a pair of 9.80s on vault and bars and a 9.85 on beam.

She admitted she and fellow junior Kristina Baskett were already talking about next year. In the hallway they were joking — "'Hey, do you feel the senior power?"' they asked each other. Kim said she thought the night "was really intense" in its competition with Stanford, LSU and, for a while, Alabama.

"We're not going home with our heads down. We had an awesome year, and this is kind of where we've been throughout the year, so we did what we've been doing. I think we had a great meet, and so did Georgia ," said Baskett. "Starting on beam is rough."

These 2008 championships wrap up tonight with the individual event finals at 4 p.m. MDT today. Postell, Baskett and Kyndal Robarts have opportunities to win national championships then. Postell is in three event finals, all but vault, even though she ended the season as the nation's No. 1 vaulter. Baskett is in bars and floor, and Robarts is in bars finals.

Team scores

Georgia 197.450

Utah 197.125

Stanford 196.750

Florida 196.700

LSU 196.350

Alabama 196.125

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E-mail: lham@desnews.com