The Alabama Crimson Tide gymnasts headed down south to Cajun Country for their first road trip of the 2004 season and came away with a decisive victory over the 20^th-ranked LSU Tigers.  Bama mixed in some new routines to continue building depth on each event and rested their top all-arounder Jeana Rice on the floor exercise, enroute to a final score of 197.600 and the #1 team ranking for the week of January 26, 2004.  Let's review some of the highlights from each team's performance.

Uneven Bars

Alabama started the meet on the bars with a terrific opening set from sophomore Ashley Miles, who threw a toe-on toe-off to giant with a full turn to Tkatchev combination. Her transition to handstand on the low bar was needle-straight and she stuck the double layout dismount with remarkable distance from the high bar for a 9.850.  Perhaps if this routine had come later in the line-up, the Texas native would have received a higher score, it was that good.  Sophomore Dana Filetti followed with a strong routine of her own, starting with a toe-on straddle release to the high bar, a giant full turn to Gienger release (beautifully flared out from the bar, legs tightly together) and a double front dismount, landed chest high with one small step forward to check the landing (9.775).  An additional deduction possibly taken for the cowboy form on the dismount. Junior Shannon Hrozek completed her pirouetting once again on top of the high bar and her huge Gienger release with equal confidence and finished with her best dismount of the year, a reverse giant to half turn to a double tuck, executing both somersaults above the high bar and landing it chest high, no balance checks (9.875). Unfortunately, sophomore Mari Bayer missed her re-grasp on the pike Jaeger release (9.150) but freshman Brittany Comeaux electrified her home-state fans with that huge Tkatchev out of a giant full turn and stuck her double front with amazing height and distance from the high bar as well (9.925).  This routine just missed vertical on at least two handstands (one out of an uprise, one during transition to low bar).  Senior Jeana Rice also rocked her landing of the full in after throwing a half turn to two inverted giants to another half turn to Tkatchev release (9.975).  The Tide went 5 of 6 on this event, dropped Bayer's score and finished with a team total of 49.400, best of the young season so far.  Sophomore Dana Pierce exhibited her routine and stuck the reverse tuck somersault off the high bar as well.

Meanwhile, over on vault, LSU's Brittany Brown threw a front pike ½ twist (9.775) and was likely deducted for soft knees and loose form in the air, bent at waist on landing, while Rikki L'Heureux vaulted a double full (9.80, off center to the left, step forward), Lindsey Thompson a Hristakieva (9.80, for limited distance, one step forward but otherwise nice form in flight).   Yurchenko 1/1 vaults were thrown by Kelly Phelan (9.825, one step back, a little piked), Nicki Butler (9.825, nice form but limited distance, one step) and April Burkholder (9.900, deduction likely occurred for jamming the landing and finishing bent forward at the waist).  LSU dropped Brown's score and finished with a team total of 49.150. 

Vault

The Tide rotated to the vault while the Bengal Tigers moved to the bars.  Bama's Jeana Rice started off with a strong Yurchenko 1/1 (9.90 for small scoot backwards on landing, otherwise her usual terrific form), followed by Dana Filetti's Yurchenko full twist on back pike off (9.825 for limited height, one step to the left on landing).  Shannon Hrozek had better success this week with her Yurchenko 1/1 (9.725) and landed it off center with one step to the left.  Dana Pierce stuck her Yurchenko 1/1 (9.775) but was deducted heavily for piking it down in place.  Alexis Brion's front pike ½ twist had amazing amplitude and distance but was deducted for a small scoot up and back (9.925). Ashley Miles had basically the same problem and was deducted accordingly but rewarded for her amazing height above the vault table in flight and the tight form during the twisting of the Yurchenko 1/1 (9.95). Bama dropped Hrozek's 9.725 and finished with a 49.375, running total at this point of a 98.775.  Freshman Johnna Gay exhibited a Yurchenko full twist in the tuck position, one step on the landing.  The coaches expect her to lay this out by mid-season.

The first three Bengal gals struggled on the bars with execution errors and came away with a 9.750 (Rikki L'Heureux), 9.750 (April Burkholder) and a 9.650 (Lindsay Beddow) respectively.  Burkholder had really nice difficulty (Gienger and Pak Salto release moves) but overshot a reverse giant uprise and had to take an extra swing before moving into her dismount (double layout) that she in turn landed low and bent forward on one leg. Lisa Rennie threw a nice Shaposhnikova and a straddle Jaeger release (9.850) and Annie Gagnon threw a confident set that included a stuck double layout dismount (9.900).  Katherine Hilton finished with a 9.80 (included two major release moves but missed vertical on her handstands and was likely deducted for not completing her pirouetting on top of the bar). LSU finished with a 49.050 after dropping Beddow's score of 9.650, running total of 98.200 at this point.

Floor Exercise

The Tide headed to the floor mat next, ranked #1 on this event nationally.  Senior Lauren Holdefer started off with a super double tuck but did not get enough propulsion on her front handspring as she moved into the front full to punch front (landed the third element on her bottom after a valiant effort to save it).  She completed the tumbling with another double tuck, landed well (9.325).  Dana Pierce (9.825) stepped confidently into the fray for her collegiate debut on the floor and performed beautifully, throwing a perfect opening pass of a double pike, followed by a front handspring to two front layouts, finishing with a double twist.  Dance elements included a ring leap, a double twist to wolf full combination and a switch leap half to two straddle jumps. Mari Bayer followed with another superb combination of tumbling and choreography (9.850) that set the stage for Alexis Brion (9.900), Stephanie Kite (9.900) and Ashley Miles' new routine, that garnered a 10 from one judge (9.975).  Ashley has more opportunity to show off her dance and personality with this new routine and it was clear the fans from both sides were impressed with her performance on this occasion.   Team total on floor: 49.450 with a running total of 148.150.  Two exhibitions on floor were thrown by freshmen: Johnna Gay (9.825) and Erin Rightley (9.825).  Gay opened with a stuck 2 ½ twist, followed by a front handspring-front full-front tuck and she ended with a very nice double twist. Rightley opened with a front through to a 1 ½ (loose on the landing), followed by a perfect front handspring-front full-front pike tumbling pass and ended with a double twist (popped this a bit on the landing).  Both routines will see the inclusion of double pikes (Rightley's is huge) at some point in the near future.

Over on the balance beam, LSU was tacking on solid scores by senior Lindsay Beddow (9.800), sophomore Terin Martinjak (9.825) and Kelly Phelan (9.800) but the best routine belonged to freshman Lisa Rennie (9.925), who threw a very difficult pike jump to immediate piked back dive down to the beam.  Burkholder (9.750) had tons of difficulty (round off layout mount, bhs-layout-layout; switch leap-sheep jump combination; side Somi; double tuck dismount) but form errors were frequent and costly (bent at the waist and wobbling on the flight series landing and the side Somi; major cowboy on the double tuck and a step back). Team total on the beam was a 49.100, with a running total of 147.300 at this juncture.

Balance Beam

Bama finished up the meet on the beam right in front of their loyal fans (estimate about 100-125 in attendance).  Junior Michelle Reeser never wavered during her opening routine (9.875) and set the stage for local gal, Rachael Delahoussaye's 9.850, which was just as solid.  Dana Pierce (9.225) got a bit tangled on her movement from a sitting to standing position early on in her routine, resulting in a shifting of her weight off the beam, counted as a fall.  She rapidly executed the rest of her moves with nice confidence (switch leap combination; two-footed bhs-layout; straddle-straddle-wolf combination).  Shannon Hrozek threw her best routine of the year (9.850) and Mari Bayer followed suit (9.850) with a solid set of her own (switch leap to straddle jump combination was landed with a deep bend at the knees but she kept moving).  Jeana Rice was perfect in our eyes, nailing the flight series (bhs-layout-layout), the gymacro series and the wolf full as well as the double twist dismount (9.950).  Team total on beam: 49.375 and a final score of 197.600.  Erin Rightley exhibited on the beam during a huge roar from the LSU crowd as April Burkholder's "10" was being flashed and stayed on throughout (9.725).  This despite having ongoing trouble during long and short warm-ups sticking her flight series (bhs-layout).

Finishing up on the floor, LSU had several gymnasts throwing solid routines with very funky and unique, crowd-pleasing dance moves (Terin Martinjak, Kelly Phelan, Brittany Brown all scored 9.875) but April Burkholder stole the show easily, combining difficult tumbling (tucked full in, 2 ½ punch front, whip ½ to layout step-out) with mesmerizing, dynamic choreography that seems so natural for her to execute.  She may well be the heir apparent to Jamie Dantzscher for the next three years on this event.  The Tigers scored a 49.450 on the floor and finished with a 196.750.