Click above for NCAA
Regional Championship Information,
hosted by LSU on Friday, April 7
? Click here for meet notes (5 pages in PDF format)
University Park, Pa., April 6, 2006 ?C The 16th-ranked Penn State women??s gymnastics team heads to LSU for the NCAA Regional Championships on Friday, April 7 at 6:00 p.m. CT. The Nittany Lions, who are making their 32nd appearance in the Regional Championships, will be vying for a spot in the NCAA National Championships, hosting by Oregon State on April 20-22.
The six teams making up the NCAA Central Regional field in addition to Penn State include No. 6 Oklahoma, No. 7 LSU, No. 20 Kentucky, Michigan State and Ohio State.
The top two teams and the top two all-around competitors not on an advancing team from each of the six Regionals will receive an automatic berth to the national championships. In addition, individual event winners will also advance if they are not a part of an advancing team or one of the all-around qualifiers.
The Nittany Lions will start the NCAA Regional Competition with a bye in the first rotation and then move to the floor and vault in the second and third rotations. After a bye in the fourth rotation, Penn State will finish out the meet on the bars and beam in the fifth and sixth rotations, respectively.
The Nittany Lions finished third at the 2006 Big Ten Championships on March 25 at Michigan State. Penn State posted a team score of 194.925, falling just short of first-place Minnesota (195.150) and second-place Michigan State (194.975).
Junior Corissa Pirkl (West Islip, N.Y.) shared the individual vault title, scoring a 9.800 while freshman Katie Perret (Colorado Springs, Colo.) claimed the outright uneven bars title with a 9.900. Sophomore Aslynn Satterfield (Boalsburg, Pa.) was Penn State??s top finisher on the floor, scoring a second-place 9.875.
In addition, seniors Lisa Clark (Philadelphia, Pa.), Meredith Hoover (Dublin, Ohio) and Jennifer Orlando (Herndon, Va.) were chosen as First Team All-Big Ten selections while Satterfield was named to the second team. It was the second First Team selection for both Clark and Hoover and the first career honor for Orlando and Satterfield.
For more information on the Penn State women??s gymnastics team, please visit www.GoPSUsports.com.