April 19, 2010
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Arizona State University gymnast Mary Atkinson will head to the NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships this week to compete as an all-arounder. Hosted by the University of Florida, the 2010 NCAA Championships will be held April 22-24 at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center in Gainesville, Fla. Atkinson is the first Sun Devil since April Boone in 2005 to qualify as an individual and will be the first Sun Devil to represent ASU at the NCAA Championships since 2006. ASU has been represented at 25 out of 29 NCAA Championships.
A native of Chesapeake, Va., Atkinson will compete in the preliminary round on Thursday while rotating with Nebraska. Should she place in the top four on any apparatus, she would qualify for the event finals held Saturday. She will begin the meet on beam.
With a score of 39.075, Atkinson qualified for her first NCAA Championships after placing seventh at the NCAA West Regional. The junior has been the team's rock this season, hitting 44 out of 48 routines. She has put up the team's high marks on vault (9.9 four times), bars (9.95), floor (9.9 two times) and in the all-around (39.5). Additionally, she has scored a career-best 9.8 on beam. In all, Atkinson has won the all-around four times, floor six times, vault five times and bars twice this season. In recognition of her success this season, she was named Second-Team All-Pac-10 in the all-around.