12A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, April 4, 1996 'M' women's gymnastics bound for Baton Rouge By Kevin Kasibors Daily Sports Writer The field for the central-regional championships, to be held in Ba- ton Rouge, La., April 13, has been finalized. The top seed is defending regional cham- pion Alabama. Michigan, which won its fifth straight Big Ten c ham p ionship women's gymnastics Notebook rivals Michigan State and Minnesota, the No. 3 and No. 5 seeds, respectively. Fourth-seeded Iowa State, No. 6 Auburn and the host, No.7 Louisiana State, round out the field. As the top seed, Alabama will have the luxury of performing the four events in Olympic order - vault, bars, beam and then floor exercise. Most teams prefer this order because they are familiar with it - home teams use it during the regular season. The nation is divided into five regions. The five regional champions and the next seven highest-scoring teams, regardless of region, will advance to the national championship meet. The central region is considered to be strong and will likely send more than one team to nationals. This is the fifth consecutive appear- ance for the Wolverines in the regional meet, but they have yet to win it. Michi- gan finished second in 1992 and second again when it hosted the meet last season. Men's tennis The Michigan men's tennis team dropped to No. 22 ir the latest Intercolle- giate Tennis Association's Rolex Colle- giate Rankings released Tuesday. The Wolverines(3-1 Big Ten,8-7 over- all) lost a Big Ten dual match last Satur- day to Penn State but rebounded to defeat Wisconsin on Sunday. Individually, Michigan's No. I singles player Peter Pusztai retained his ranking, staying at No.22 with a 30-10 record this year. Pusztai is coming off four consecu- tive victories at first singles after a sea- son-high two-match losing streak. At first doubles, Pusztai teams with senior John Costanzo to form the No. 24 doubles tandem in the nation. The pair split its last two matches and is 12-8 on the season. Pusztai and Costanzo fell five spots afterreaching a season-high No. 17. Against the Big Ten, Pusztai is a per- fect 12-0, and leads the Wolverines in tournament victories with 20. Michigan is in action this weekend with home games against Purdue and Illinois. - Richard Shin Women's golf The Michigan women's golfteam heads into this weekend's Lady Buckeye Invi- tational riding a wave of momentum, and Katy Loy is a big reason why. The freshman from Ann Arbor's Pio- neer High School won the individual title at the Saluki Invitational. Her two-round score of 154 led the Wolverines to the team title. Her first-place finish was a dramatic improvement on her lasttourna- mentin which sheplaced 15th. She shaved nine strokes off her previous score to win the invitational. Loy has become the star on a strong Wolverine squad that may qualify for the NCAA regionals for the first time in the 20-year history of the program. Loy won the Michigan State high school title three times during her career and was named Miss Golf in Michigan as ajunior and a senior. -John Friedberg last weekend, qualified as the No. 2 seed. Besides the Crimson Tide, the Wolver- i nes willI have to contend with conference Men's track racing into relays today By Kim Hart For the Daily The Michigan men's track and field team dashed off early this moming* Williamsburg, Va., for the 34th running of the Colonial Relays. The College of William and Mary is hosting the 178 participants in the three- day event for high school, college and club teams. The meet is mostly for relay competitions, but there will be individual and open categories. The college events open tomorrow morning, and the Wolverines can hardly wait. Coach Jack Harvey was pleased w the performances at last weekend's Gainesville Relays, but because of the rain, only a few members actually ran. Last weekend was supposed be a time for younger runners to get some experience outdoors, as well as practice time for returning members. "We just want to get outside and run," Harvey said before yesterday's practice. "The weather just hasn't permitted u* be out there, so we're going to take the opportunity this weekend and see how we do." The team took advantage of the nice weather and headed to Eastern Michigan for their first practice outdoors. Even though the majority ofthe meet is dedicated to relays, and Michigan will be represented in most of them, several men will be participating in the individual events as well. Two runners are looking to place in individual portion of the meet. Neil Gardner, who is fighting off a cold, will be running in the high and intermediate hurdles, and freshman Todd Snyder will be competingin the men's 5,000. The coaches are also optimistic about individual performances in the field events. Stan Johanningwill bein Friday's open javelin contest, and Brian Wildfong will be in the shot put and discus conte Jon Royce and Damon DeVasher hoping to bound over the other competi- tors in the high jump. The 4 x 400- and the 4 x 100-meter relay teams are taking the momentum from last weekend's times and trying to improve. The younger members of the team are excited and hope for a chance to finally compete. Championship heats will start late to- morrow afternoon and continue Satur- day. 'M' golfers driving for NCAA bid By Jennifer Hodulik Daily Sports Writer The Michigan women's golf team has never reached the NCAA regional tour- nament in its 20-year history. But a tournament win at the Saluki Invitational last weekend placed the Wolverines in an excel lentposition, head- ing into the Lady Buckeye Invitational, to take their talent to the next level. The 15-team field at Columbus t weekend will feature all of the Big Ten teams (minus Penn State) including pe- rennial conference powerhouses Indiana and Ohio State. Highly regarded Arizona will also be on hand, along with Iowa State, another regional bubble team. Michigan coach Kathy Teichert be- lievesthatan upset ofone ofthe top teams could be akey ingredient to a tournament berth. "We're awfully close (to makiW regionals)," Teichert said. "We need to pick off a high-caliber team such as Indi- ana to meet our goal of a top-four finish." A committee of coaches selecting the regional field will choose the top three teams out of Michigan's 30-team Mid- west district. The criteria fortheir choices will be head-to-head competition within the district, individual and team finishes in competition, and team stroke averages. The Wolverines' first-place finish 1 weekend was an important step in meet- ing qualification criteria and was high- lighted by freshman Katy Loy's first-ever collegiate medalist honor. Joining Loy on the trip to Columbus will be seniorcaptain Shannon McDonald, who also has a first-place finish under her belt on the season and leads the team in stroke average with a 79.25. Rounding outthis weekend's team w' I be freshmen Sharon Park and Sa Lindholm, sophomore Laura Tzakis and junior Wendy Westfall. "Our win at (the Saluki) put us in a great position heading into this tourna- ment," Tzakis said. "We hope to keep ou momentum going for the rest of the sea- Of.1VIN XI3 %t ~-TEMER NT.