The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/6/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: DANIEL SHIREY Junior Courtney McCool was greeted by her team after receiving a 10 on beam Saturday. [Click to enlarge]

[Click to enlarge]

[Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: PHOTOS BY DANIEL SHIREY (Second) Courtney Kupets scores a 9.925 on bars. (Third) Hillary Mauro performs her floor routine, scoring a 9.8. (Fourth) Grace Taylor flips through the air during her floor routine, scoring a 9.850. [Click to enlarge]

RALEIGH, N.C. - Now that's redemption.

Plenty of ghosts loomed for Georgia gymnastics at their NCAA Regional Saturday - there was the looming specter of a second-place finish at the SEC championships, and the accompanying disappointment of a slow start on beam. There was also the memory of an abysmal 195.000 when the Gym Dogs last came to Raleigh.

Consider them all exorcised.

Perfect 10s from Courtney Kupets and Courtney McCool helped propel the top-ranked Gym Dogs to a 197.700 and a Southeast Regional title, punching their ticket for the NCAA Championships in Lincoln, Neb.

"This is absolutely the way we wanted to get into NCAAs," said coach Suzanne Yoculan. "When they set their mind to it and have really good focus and get the momentum going, they're an unbeatable team."

McCool's run at perfection, her second this season, came as part of a season-best 49.550 on beam that closed out the Gym Dogs' 197.700, their third-best score of the 2009 campaign. That after two falls on beam essentially cost Georgia the SEC championship two weeks ago.

"There must not have been enough oxygen in the room at SECs," McCool said. "Because for some reason we got really uptight and tense. We don't do beam like that. To show up on that big stage and show everybody stuff that we don't ever do, it's like we had to come out here for ourselves. It was just complete domination."

Said junior Grace Taylor, who scored a 9.900 on the event: "What happened at SECs was kind of a fluke. And it took us all by surprise, because the beam that happened tonight was a lot more of what our beam lineup is about."

Kupets' 10 came on vault this time and pushed the two-time individual NCAA all-around champ into the Georgia annals yet again.

She has now achieved perfection on every event in 2009, making her just the third Gym Dog ever to earn the season "grand slam."

Her 39.675 on the all-around earned her the individual regional title and Southeast Regional Gymnast of the Year honors.

A 49.225 on floor and a season-best 49.525 found the Gym Dogs on top of their nearest opponent by 0.8 by the meet's midpoint. Twelfth-ranked Penn State finished a distant second to join the Gym Dogs in Nebraska, scoring a 195.800.

"It felt so good. Not even the perfect end but just the feeling of redeeming ourselves from last time," McCool said. "It's just such a good feeling to be able to fight and come through with what we're here to do. Warm-ups were shaky again and we got yelled at as usual, but that's what it's about. It's about redemption."

Saturday was the first step in the Gym Dogs' pursuit of a fifth straight national title, and record 10th, in Yoculan's 26th and final year in Athens. And it was a good one.

"I can't imagine anyone in the country beating our last three events," Yoculan said. "If anybody had a higher score than us, I have a hard time believing they did better than we did tonight."

NCAAs will have a decidedly SEC feel when they get underway on April 16, as Georgia's conference colleagues took titles at four of the other five regionals Saturday. Arkansas, Florida, LSU and Alabama, the team that bested the Gym Dogs at SECs, all won their regionals and will be making the trip to Lincoln.

UCLA and rival Utah, which scored the highest score of any of Georgia's will-be competitors with a 196.675, will also be there.

All the better for the Gym Dogs.

"SECs made them really mad," Yoculan said. "The only thing worse than a wounded dog is a dog that loses. Watch out."

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