Cal State Fullerton Notebook : They’re Doing Flips About High Marks

The second floor of Titan Gym is the practice home of 11 chalk-dusted women who are the nation’s fifth-ranked gymnastics team. On campus, they have another claim to fame: They are ranked No. 1 in grade-point average among all Cal State Fullerton teams.

For 12 years in a row, the women’s gymnastics team didn’t know what it was like to finish lower than fifth in the nation.

The past two seasons, the team has learned. Fullerton finished 13th last season, not even in the top 20 the year before.

But this season, with a team that doesn’t have a senior on the roster, the Titans are back in the thick of things. They are fifth in the nation, and have a 12-2 record, both losses to fourth-ranked UCLA. One of their victims was Georgia in Athens, Ga.--only Georgia’s third loss at home in history.

That’s all thanks to a team with no true stars but a lot of consistent performers. And all to the joy of Coach Lynn Rogers--as well as a bit to his surprise.

“When we started off the year,” Rogers said, “I was hoping to finish five through 10 (nationally), looking at the talent and depth and where we finished last year. Now I’m thinking top six.”

You can’t talk to Rogers more than about five minutes without learning another thing about this team--it had a 3.4 grade-point average last semester.

“They’re smart. They’re overachievers,” Rogers said. “I don’t have them winning events, they’re not winning the all-around. . . . “

The bottom line is that this is a team that doesn’t often win individual events, but wins meets because all its gymnasts score well.

Lisa Dolan, a sophomore who is ranked 13th in the country in the all-around, is the closest to a star on the team. But she is the first to say that no one carries that role.

“It’s not like there’s one person totally running the show,” Dolan said. “We’re all in the gym pulling for each other.”

The floor exercise is Fullerton’s best event, and the Titans are ranked second nationally behind Utah. Sophomore Margot Gumerlock is Fullerton’s best, ranked sixth. Dolan and Stacy Harris are also strong.

Gumerlock also is a powerful vaulter, and she finished fifth in the all-around at the prestigious UCLA Invitational.

Dolan has had to recover from an elbow injury right before the season. But she still is ranked 13th in the all-around, and is also ranked on the balance beam and the floor.

Harris, also an all-arounder, is 15th on the floor. Heather Thomas, the team’s only junior, is an all-arounder who excels on bars--14th in the country--and beam.

It goes on. Krickitt Pappas is 20th on the beam. Tiffany Lambert works the beam and floor. Freshman Heidi Geier, who has competed for the Canadian national team, is competing on vault and bars despite a stress fracture in her leg. Gina Satterly, another freshman, competes in three events, and is ranked 15th on the floor.

These are the exploits of a team that last spring faced the prospect that the school might discontinue the sport because of finances.

“That hurt our feelings,” Dolan said. “Gymnastics had always done so well here. . . . It was hard to handle, but it helped us come back stronger. We knew if we did great and did great in school there was no way they’d want to drop us.”

The school decided against dropping gymnastics, which would have been an unpopular decision--and extraordinarily so for these 11 women.

This season, they’re working toward a finish much better than last year’s.

“I think we can finish in the top six, maybe top three,” Dolan said.

The baseball team isn’t particularly powerful this season--no player has hit more than two home runs--but a couple of players have mounted hitting streaks, something of a Titan specialty.

Brent Mayne, who had a school-record 38-game hitting streak last season, is up to six this season after being out sick. But he has competition from Rex Peters, who has a 13-game streak.

As for the home runs, Peters, David Staton, Rod Klopfer and Bobby Jones have two each.