April 5, 2004
The NCAA has announced the field for the 2004 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships, which will be held Apr. 15-17 at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion. Arizona State will be competing with the host team, UCLA in the evening session (7:00 pm) of the team preliminaries/all-around competition on Thursday, Apr. 15, along with Alabama, LSU, Michigan and Utah. Competing in the afternoon session (1:00 pm) will be Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Stanford.
ASU, which qualified for the national championships for the 23rd time in history, is coming off a second-place finish in the 2004 Central Region Championships in Baton Rouge, La. ASU has now qualified for nationals in six of the last eight years.
Also qualifying for Thursday's preliminary competition are individual all-around competitors Tanya Ricioli-Hebron (Oregon State), Erin Dethloff (Iowa State), Monica Bisordi (Arizona), Courtney Bumpers (North Carolina), Kari Lords (Brigham Young), Lindsay Ward (Boise State), Janae Cox (West Virginia), Sara Burtinsky (Central Michigan), Ashley Williams (Illinois), Heather Huffaker (Denver), Ashley Shible (Denver), Janet Anson (Iowa State), as well as individual event qualifiers Lisa Clark (Penn State) on vault and floor, Casey Dobyns (Denver) on vault, Cara Pomeroy (Illinois) on bars, Andi McCabe (Arizona) on floor, Laura-Kay Powell (Iowa State) on floor and Carly Dockendorf (Washington) on floor.
In a random draw conducted by the NCAA, UCLA was given the Olympic order during the preliminaries, starting on vault and ending on floor exercise. Arizona State will begin on a bye before bars, Utah opens on bars, LSU on beam, Alabama on a bye before floor and Michigan on floor. In the afternoon session, Stanford begins on vault, Florida on a bye before bars, Iowa on bars, Oklahoma on beam, Georgia on a bye before floor and Nebraska on floor.
The top three finishers from each preliminary session will advance to the Super Six Team Finals on Friday, Apr. 16 at 7:00 pm. The top four individuals from each session in each event (plus ties) from the preliminary team and all-around competition will compete in the individual event finals on Saturday, Apr. 17 at 7:00 pm.
The National Championships will be televised by CBS on Saturday, May 1 from 1-3 p.m. ET. The announcers are Bonnie Bernstein and Amanda Borden. The sideline reporter is Tracy Wolfson.