The Michigan Daily - Sports Monday - April 5, 1993 - Page 9 Michigan crew braves icy conditions, sees tepid results against Cincinnati SUSAN iSAAKIDaily The Michigan men's and women's crew teams competed this weekend against Cincinnati on the Huron River. Women tumblers earn bid to nationals, finish fourth in Central reonal quaifers by Brian Hillburn Daily Sports Writer The Cincinnati crew team liter- ally got an icy reception when they drove up to Ann Arbor for last Saturday's regatta against Michigan. That's because the original site of the meet, Ford Lake in Ypsilanti, froze due to last week's inclement weather. Thus, the races had to be held on the tiny Huron River, where neither team was able to claim complete victory. Since the Huron is not long enough for the teams to race the usual 2000 meters, each of the boats had to race 1000 meters a few times in a row. Therefore many of the Wolverine and Bearcat boats won some of the races, but also lost a few others. "The results from the day kind of left an uneasy feeling," Michigan women's varsity coach Mark Rothstein said. "We didn't really settle who was faster. The good thing is that we'll see Cincinnati three more times this year," The meet ended with Michigan's varsity men winning one of its three races, and the varsity women fin- ished winning one, losing one, and 'The novices have rowed very well, a have improved sin last week. The vai crews got a lot ou it since the racing very intense. It wz good workout if nothing else.' - Mark Rot Michigan women' sults, several of the races were close. Michigan's varsity women generated a lot of excitement with a great and come-from-behind win. ice "On the last set with about 10 rie strokes to go, we were down by rsity about four seats," senior Karin Stork it of said. "We sprinted through them and was finished about four seats ahead. It as a was probably the best sprint we've had this season." The Wolverines' varsity men made their races interesting -as all hstein were decided by less than half the s Crew boat length. coach "We lost the first by about two seats," sophomore Pete Noordijk Ssaid. "For the second, we won by a length. For the last one, we had a es. The really bad start and by the middle of were the the race we brought it together. We t, as both took it up for a pretty strong sprint 1's boats and for about the last 250 meters, and we moved through them but didn't quite catch them. The referee ied very said that we lost by about half a ince last foot." e varsity Michigan will have another since the chance to beat the Bearcats this It was a weekend, when both teams go down to Washington D.C. to race on the en's and Potomac for the George Washington mixed re- Invitational. by Thom Holden Daily Sports Writer Flying into Baton Rouge on Thursday, the Michigan women's gymnastics team knew it had the ability to earn an invitation to the national meet. The only questions that lingered were how would the team be able to overcome an excep- tionally talented region and due to the invitation system the NCAA has in place, would they be able to over- come scoring differences from re- gion to region. "We did it!" said sophomore Li Li Leung. The Wolverines finished fourth in the Central region and received, the final "at-large" bid for the NCAA National Championship meet held on April 15-17 in Corvallis, Ore. Barely. Michigan narrowly edged out Brigham Young by .2 for the final invitation. One more penalty and the Wolverines would have fallen victim to the invitation system for the sec- ond yearinarow., Led by sophomore All-American Beth Wymer, the Wolverines notched several personal and school records en route to their champi- onship bid. Wymer scored the only perfect 10 of the evening on the uneven bars breaking the school record in the process. Other top scores for the Wolverines included Wymer's 9.925 on the balance beam and 9.825 on the floor. Sophomore Kelly Carfora (9.825 on the uneven bars) and sophomore Debbie Berman (9.800 on the balance beam) rounded out the top scores for Michigan. Berman's score was a personal best for her. "Coach (Bev Plocki) put me fourth, which is a position that I am really comfortable with," Berman said. "I saw the team cheering me on and I just went out and nailed (the balance beam)." Wymer's 39.125 in the all around was good enough for fifth place at the regional meet. The team set a school record on the uneven bars with a score of 49.025. The scores ranged from 9.725 to 10.0. "(Uneven) bars was our last event and our team score on the bars ... was just incredible," Plocki said But the Wolverines did have some problems. The floor exercise and the vault - normally strong events for Michigan - provided problems for the team. "The vault was scored extremely tightly for some reason," Plocki said. Carfora's score of 9.725 was the team high. "We had a couple of breaks (score deductions) on the floor." Wymer said "We weren't at our best." Placing fourth in the region was perhaps lower than the team ex- pected, but its score was about what Plocki felt her team needed in order to obtain the much coveted invitation to the national meet. Placing first at the meet was Alabama, scoring a 196.075. The win gave the Crimson Tide an auto- matic bid to the championship meet. The two other teams earning bids from the region were Louisiana State (194.700) and Auburn (194.200). Michigan State finished fifth at the region, but fell victim to Penn State who won their region, but whose score was lower than Michigan State's. BYU also fell victim to Penn State. BYU'S score of 192.800 was just behind the Wolverines for the final at-large bid. Because of where they were placed (in the Midwest Regional) they were excluded. These were Michigan' s top finishers in the Men's Gym- nastics Regionals this week- end in Champaign. Floor Raul Molina, 9.6* Pommel Mike Mott, 8.85 Chris Onuska, 8.05 Parallel Bars Royce Toni, 9.3 Bob Young, 8.95 High Bars Rich Dopp, 9.75* Kris Klinger, 9.725 Bob Young, 9.5* *qualified for nationals. tying one of their rac Wolverines' novice boatsv only big winners at the meet the men's and the women won three races apiece. "The novices have row well, and have improved s week," Rothstein said. "Th crews got a lot out of it s racing was very intense.I good workout if nothing else Although both the m women's varsity boats hadn ILET'S GO BLUE..! Watch the game on our ' BIGHUGEGIGANTIC screen T.V! 1 24 oz. KING can of Bud/Bud Light' I 1220 S. University $2.50 665-7777 - U W t - s- M --'sue