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8 » The Red and Black • Friday, April 13. 1990
Gym Dogs get ready for Hell Week
By CHRIS LANCETTE
Sports Writer
Perfection.
That’s what Georgia gymnastics
coach Suzanne Yoculan says is nec
essary throughout the seven days
before the NCAA championship in
Corvallis, Ore., if her third-seeded
Gym Dogs are to repeat last year’s
crown winning.
‘The fact is that Utah and Ala
bama (the first and second seeds,
respectively) are better than we
are,” Yoculan said. “But that
doesn’t mean we’re a team that
can’t win the national
championship.
“We don’t have any room for
error. We have to hit 24 for 24. We
have to be perfect.”
Yoculan isn’t only talking about
sticking every routine at nationals
but the fact that the remaining
week of practice — the “Countdown
to Corvallis" — must be well-or
chestrated and mentally and phys
ically tough.
Today’s practice begins with a
warm up on bars and then an in
tense practice on the other three
events before coming back to com
plete the apparatus.
Yoculan knows the team will be
tired, maxed out, but she’s at
tempting to simulate the Corvallis
scenario — where Georgia will
start on beam and finish on bars.
Saturday’s practice will be
Sophia Royce
equally as tough. “We just want to
get in the numbers,” Yoculan says.
That means the gymnasts will per
forming multiple back-to-back rou
tines without rests in between.
The most important numbers
must come on beam. Georgia has
hit it consistently in the last five
meets and it’s imperative for the
Lady Dogs to do so again.
If they fail to do so next Friday,
it’s a mathematical certainty that
the Gym Dogs will be booted out of
contention in the first round.
A day ofT Sunday will lead to a
full intrasquad meet the following
day.
And Tuesday morning, the team
will fly to Oregon and try to get ad
justed to the three-hour time
change before a grueling practice
Wednesday.
Thursday is scheduled to be a
light day of workout.
As much os perfect gymnastic
ability is a prerequisite to
Georgia’s winning a third NCAA
ring, mental conditioning may be
even more important.
‘We have to get mentally pre
pared," said sophomore Sophia
Royce. “We have to stay positive
and intensify our focus and not
worry about any outside influ
ences.”
Team captain Kathy Dwyer
agrees.
‘We all need to get ourselves to
gether,” she said. “Each person
needs to go and do what they need
to do physically, but we can’t iso
late ourselves mentally. We have
to be there for each other."
Practicing successfully under
the intense pressure of the Count
down to Corvallis is going to be
stressful for all the athletes. But
Yoculan hopes by practicing it,
they’ll perfect and perform it.
“By having them stressed out in
practice, I think that will help
them get through nationals. We ob
viously can’t create the same pres
sure, but we want to come as close
as we can get.”
Format puts Netters ahead in SEC
By RANDY WALKER
Sports Writer
For the first time since 1953,
both Georgia tennis teams can
geniunely say they are leading
the SEC standings.
This is not because Georgia
tennis has recently scaled the
heights of the SEC, but because
regular season conference dual
matches count for the first time
toward determining the SEC
team champion.
The change to a conference
team tournament gives added
weight to the Georgia men’s trip
to face No. 13 Kentucky (13-8, 1-
4) Sunday and No. 6 Tennesse
(19-0, 3-0) Monday, and the Lady
Netters road match with the No.
19 Wildcats (10-5, 3-1) Sunday.
Each dual match victory earns
one point for the winning team
and is added to the points scored
at the SEC Team Tournament.
Every match victory in the tour
nament is also worth one point.
As of Friday, April 13, the No.
3 ranked Georgia men’s team (15-
2, 5-0) lead the SEC with five
points, while the No. 5 ranked
Georgia women (17-2, 6-0) lend
with six points.
“I like the new format better,”
Georgia women’s coach Jeff Wal
lace said. “It’s a better way of de-
Dual match victories
earn a point for the
winning team and are
added to the SEC Team
Tournament scores.
termining the conference team
champion. If you’re going to talk
about the best team in the confer
ence, then it ought to be a team
format.”
Since 1953, the SEC champion
was determined by a flighted
tournament, where respective
singles and doubles tournaments
were played according to posi
tions (singles Nos. 1-6 and dou
bles Nos. 1-3). For every match a
player won, his team received a
point and the team with the most
points at the end of the six sin
gles and three doubles tourna
ments won the SEC crown.
“With the flighted format, the
regular-season round-robin was
insignificant,” Tennessee men’s
coach Mike DePalmer said. “I
strongly endorsed the change be
cause I feel that dual matches are
the only way of determining the
true conference champion, not
taking anything away from
Georgia’s SEC titles. Before, 1
haven’t felt as much pressure
during the round-robin matches,
but this year I do."
“If the SEC kept the old
flighted format I wouldn’t have
called it the SEC Team
Championship, I would call it the
SEC Individual Championship, ”
Florida women’s coach Andi
Brandi said.
One drawback to the new
format is the possibility of
matches being rained out. Not
every school in the SEC has in
door facilities or access to indoor
courts. In the event of rain-outs,
matches would have to be made
up prior to the tournament.
The Tennessee men’s team
currently has to make up
matches with Auburn and Mis
sissippi before the tournament
begins.
Brandi’s Florida team (22-2, 5-
1) lost their only SEC match to
Georgia 5-4 on Feb. 16. Wallace’s
team broke Brandi’s five-year
stranglehold on the conference
tournament last year, defeating
the Lady Gators in the flighted
tournament.
The Georgia men’s team have
won the last three conference
tournaments, and 14 of the last
18 championships.
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RUGGERS
From page 1
One party tradition unique to
rugby, says Fomier, is a game
called “Shoot the Boot.” If a player
makes a mistake singing a
drinking song, he has to guzzle
beer from a sweaty, muddy game
boot.
The atmosphere at the matches
is friendly and laid back, perhaps
because rugby is a popular spec
tator sport. Unlike American foot
ball, rugby is fast, flexible and
fluid. The possibilities and permu
tations of play are endless. Be
cause the action isn’t interrupted
as oflen, the game has a grip on
your attention. Rugby appeals to
all ages and genders.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon,
there are two women watching the
match for every man on the field.
Why so much female interest?
Melissa Hill, a 23-year-old re
The sisters of
Alpha Gamma Delta
Congratulate our new initiates
Beth Cantrell Kelly Stephens
Joy Lee Jena Trammell
| Tonya Phillips
cent advertising graduate who
often joins other rugby groupies at
the matches, answers that ques
tion with a mischievous grin, ‘slug
gers are sexy — they have the
greatest legs,” she says.
Fan gwpport is vital to the club,
which Risse says had a budget of
$18,000 to $20,000 last year. He
says that although rugby is second
only to softball as the largest club
sport in America, little support
comes from the University level.
The Ruggers must cover the costs
of 50 to 60 matches per year,
travel, jerseys, insurance, enter
tainment and Georgia Rugby
Union dues.
The team raises money by
selling t-shirts, holding garage
sales and hosting an annual golf
tournament. The alumni also give
the club substantial financial sup
port.
The Ruggers’ next match is Sat
urday against High Country of At
lanta at 1 p.m. at the Intramural
Fields.