Titans Get a Big Score, but It’s Not Big Enough : Women Gymnasts Finish Second to Arizona State in WCAA Championship

As far as the final score was concerned, Friday night’s performance by the No. 4-ranked Cal State Fullerton women’s gymnastic team was its best this season. The Titans totaled 187.65 points in the Western Collegiate Athletic Assn. championship held in Titan Gym before a crowd of 1,185.

But the score was good only for second place, as No. 2 Arizona State scored 187.95 points to take the conference championship.

The mark the Titans surpassed, this year’s previous high of 187.25, was set earlier in the week in a tri-meet between the Titans, No. 1 Utah and No. 3 Alabama. Fullerton placed third in that meet.

“Can we cancel this week,” Titan Coach Lynn Rogers joked after. “I don’t like the way it’s been going.”

If there was event that caused Fullerton to lose the meet, it was the uneven bars. The Titans’ mark of 46.65 was well behind the Sun Devils’ 47.85.

“I don’t understand it,” Rogers said. “We’re improving in consistency, and then we didn’t do well in our best event.”

Taunia Rogers, the meet’s all-around champion, had an explanation for the Titans’ poor barperformance: good, old-fashioned nerves.

“I think some of the girls got really tense,” Rogers said. “They started thinking this was the finals, and Arizona State was here and they got nervous, instead of treating it likejust another workout.”

Fullerton nearly made up for its poor bar performance with an outstanding effort on the balance beam. The Titans scored a season-high 46.90, with each team member completing the exercise without falling off. Rogers led the Titans in that event with a mark of 9.50.

Three-time All-American Rogers was the meet’s all-around champion, yet she was far from happy after it was over.

“It’s hard to get happy, this was such a close meet,” Rogers said. “This is a really low feeling right now.”

Especially low considering the Titans led until the last event. With three of the four events completed, Fullerton was ahead of Arizona State, 140.75 to 140.60. But the Titans could manage only a mark of 46.90 to win the vault as the Sun Devils were running up a score of 47.35 in the floor exercise.

“It’s funny, because I think the floor is our weakest event,” Arizona State Coach John Prini said. “We didn’t try to do anything spectacular. We just wanted to be consistent and do a solid job.”

The Sun Devils will host the Midwest Regional March 30. Utah will be the top-seeded team there.

Though disappointed to lose, the match actually may enhance Fullerton’s national ranking since rankings are based purely on performance scores. The Titans will go into the Western Regionals--March 30 at Oregon State--seeded first.

The University of Arizona, with 181.85 points, placed third in the meet followed by Stanford (180.75), UCLA (176.55), USC (178.50), San Diego State (175.75) and Cal State Long Beach (170.75).