The Michigan Daily

ATHENS, Ga. - Just as she has in nearly every meet this season, freshman Kari Pearce kicked off the floor exercise, the Michigan women's gymnastics team's first event at the NCAA Championships preliminaries Thursday.

And like usual, Pearce set the tone for the Wolverines.

But for the first time, it was a deafening tune.

Pearce smiled, danced and glided through a smooth floor routine until her final tumbling pass. She landed awkwardly and was forced to catch herself with her hands. When her 9.225 score flashed across the scoreboard, Michigan knew it would face an uphill battle for the rest of the night.

The Wolverines finished fifth of six teams in the preliminary round, falling short of a bid to the Super Six, which took place Friday night. The top three teams from each preliminary earned spots in the Super Six.

Michigan's season came to a close Thursday against some of the top competition in the country. In fact, the three teams that earned a bid to the Super Six from the Wolverines' session finished in the top three in the championships. The host Georgia Gym Dogs won their fourth consecutive national title.

Michigan coach Bev Plocki couldn't quite figure out what went wrong. But she said one thing was clear: The Wolverines failed to live up to their own expectations.

"We expected to be at the Super Six," Plocki said. "The teams that have done it over and over again and won championships have a different level of confidence when they perform. We've worked on it, and I really thought that we had it. But we started out from our very first event making small errors that cost (us)."

Immediately following Pearce's stumble on her floor routine, senior Nellie Kippley received an automatic 10th-of-a-point deduction for stepping out of bounds during her performance, another mistake uncharacteristic of Michigan.

Many Wolverines appeared a little nervous or shaky in their routines, as they demonstrated wobbles and a fall on beam and extra steps on dismounts on all events. And while Michigan gymnasts were making minor mistakes, their competition performed almost flawlessly.

Only four teams have ever won Nationals, and three of them - Georgia, Utah and UCLA - were all in Michigan's session.

The cards were stacked against the Wolverines from the start of the competition. Besides being placed in the more competitive session, Michigan drew an unfavorable rotation order, starting with a bye before floor and ending on beam. Because beam requires a quiet, focused kind of energy, it's often a difficult apparatus to finish on when the excitement level in the gym is at its peak.

"Everyone has to do four events," fifth-year senior Lindsey Bruck said. "Ending on beam can sometimes be a difficult thing, but we try to go out there with the best attitude. We can't change the rotation."

And unfortunately for the Wolverines, they had little control over the outcome by the time they arrived at beam for their final event - Georgia had all but sealed up a first-place finish. The crowd of 8,650 was thunderous, chanting "U-G-A" throughout the rotation, adding to the Michigan gymnasts' nerves. When they needed an almost-perfect beam score to have a shot at third place, the Wolverines posted a 48.650, its third-lowest score this year,

Michigan's lone bright spot was the uneven bars. After rough performances on floor and vault, the Wolverines regrouped during the bye rotation.

"We actually got a little locker bang going, did a few cheers," freshman Kylee Botterman said. "We were just trying to get pumped up and bring our spirits back up."

The rejuvenated squad came out with a 49.375 team score, anchored by Botterman and junior Becky Bernard. The duo posted matching 9.900 scores, which earned them both first-team All-America.

The event marked Michigan's 16th consecutive trip to Nationals, and the Wolverines' eighth-place finish was an improvement from last season's 11th.

But the end result wasn't what Michigan expected, having spent all season working toward finishing in the top three.

"I think we're all disappointed," Plocki said. "That's not what we came here to do."

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