tl19900426_000 "Vol. 85 No. 12 ""Required Reading"" April 26, 1990 Published weekly by the students of Towson State University, Towson MD 21204 Oft* Gymnasts exceed expectations by Mat Schlissel Staff Reporter If you were given no shot at winning the National Champi-onship, opposing coaches were wondering where you came from, and curious media and other teams must have thought you were a fluke, then wouldn't you have something to prove? lbwson State may have given one of their best performances in their history in finishing ninth at the Nationals with a 187.95. They performed in front of a sell-out crowd of over 9,000 in Gill Coliseum on the Oregon State campus. ""We hit 23 out of 24 routines, which is outstanding for a first-time competition in the Nation-als,"" said TSU head coach Dick Filbert. ""We had several people say to us last week that they couldn't believe we didn't fall apart."" After the meet, Filbert and Utah Coach Greg Marsden were named Co-Coaches of the Year in the nation. ""I was really in shock when they announced it,"" said Filbert. Coaches of the year are normally just selected from the national champion. Utah was the National Cham-pion with a meet record 194.90 points. Alabama came in second with 194.575 and Southeast regional champ and defending national champion Georgia fm-ished third (193.225). Since they started out in the first session with the bottom six seeds, there was virtually no shot for Towson to break the top six. Judges expect better perfor-mances from the top six teams, and the scores reflected this. No gymnasts from Towson made the individual round. Still, the Tigers were second in the first session, after two events, behind Cal State-Fuller-ton. The beam and floor were the only routines left, but the Tigers were upstaged by home-town favorite, Oregon State, who took the first session with a 189.95 and Cal State-Fullerton (189.7). Towson's floor scores (46.9) reflect the judges' thinking of reputation over quality. ""The girls did a great job and their routines were not of any less quality than last week (South-east Regionals),"" said assistant coach Lynda LaMonica. Sophomore Wendy Weaver fin-ished fourth, after the first ses-sion, in the all-around with her third best score ever (38.275). After the second session, her score dropped to 19th place. This was partly due to the cal- Some things come easy Junior Randy Ernst receives the James Saxon Memorial Award, for leadership on and off the field, during the halftime ceremony of the Delaware/Tiger game held last Saturday evening. Tigers 15-7 victory over Delaware gave them their fourth East Coast Conference title in seven years. Pictured above left to right: Asst. Coach Jeff Clarke, a represen-tative of the TSU Lacrosse Alumni Assoc., Randy Ernst, and Head Coach Carl Runk. see STORY, Page 6 iber of gymnasts ,the schools in which they competed for and expectancy of second session scores to be higher. The all-around winner was freshman Dee Dee Foster, of Alabama, with a remarkable Team Results From NCAA Finals' Place Team Score 1 Utah 194.90 2 Alabama 194.575 3 Georgia 193 22.5 4 UCLA 193.100 5 Nebraska 192.225 6 LSU 192.100 7 Oregon State 189.950 8 Cal-Fullerton 189.700 9 TSU 187.975 10 Arizona 187.175 11 Florida 187.175 12 Ohio St. 183.650 39.300. Shelly Schaerrer of Utah was a close second with 39.225, and her teammate Kris-ten Kenoyer finished third at 39.200. Outstanding performances were also turned in by junior Anne Sugden on bars with a 9.625 (tied for 37th out of 86 competitors) and Weaver on beam with a 9.65 (17th place). Freshman Janine Spezio's performance on beam was spectacular enough to have one judge (there were four) score her a 9.8. She did score a career-high 9.525, which was good enough to tie for 29th place. ""She was super on beam and had a very good meet,"" said Filbert. Senior tri-captain Lori Salin-dong ended her career with a 9.3 on beam, 9.325 on floor and and 9.25 vault. Senior tri-cap-tain Stephanie St. Angelo had 9.3 on vault, 9.025 on beam, and 9.3 on bars. Junior tri-captain Carri Scott scored a 9.3 on vault and 9.45 on bars. Towson did manage to finish ahead of southern-rival Florida. This held a bit of irony in the fact that two Tigers, Julie Heilman and Scott, are from the ""Sunshine State"". ""I guess when I was really young, I wanted to attend Florida,' said Scott. ""Because they had been so good in the past and we were just coming up to their level, it was really neat to beat them."" Their gymnasts were slightly disappointed, but not surprised at the fact that they didn't make the individuals. ""It was to be expected,"" said Scott. ""It always happens that the second session gets all the individuals. I think our gymnasts are just as capa- Lk as a lot of gymnasts there. If we can get into the later ses-sions next year, we can get bet-ter scores."" Accomplishments at this meet should not be read as points and standings. It's the quality of per-formance that counts. Even the lower than normal floor scores did not diminish the perfor-mances. ""It was a little bit dis-appointing,"" said LaMonica. ""But by that time we had done so much and felt so good about our performance. It really didn't matter. I felt greedy for thinking that we should have scored higher."" Most of all, the team benefited from having the two E's: expo-sure and experience. Few will be surprised if the team makes the next Nationals in Alabama (1991). Campuses throughout the country will have gymnastic coaches wearing t-shirts, that were passed out at the Nation-als, saying, ""Where's Towson State?"". Someone suggested that the t-shirt should have said ""Where's lbwson State?"" on the front and on the back, ""just ahead of Flori-da."" IlL INSIDE Stephens Hall opening delayed again. Page 2 Women's lax down Del. and UMBC. Page 6 Mahmood's version of Midsummer Night's Drram. Page 16 "
