Alabama’s Miles Prevails

Alabama’s Ashley Miles was the Pauley Pavilion star Saturday night at the NCAA women’s gymnastics championship event finals.

The sophomore defended the vault title she won last year and added floor exercise to her resume this year, sharing first place with North Carolina’s Courtney Bumpers.

Former U.S. Olympian Elise Ray, a Michigan senior, won the uneven bars event and finished tied for third on the balance beam.

Arizona State’s Ashley Kelly finished as the best on the balance beam.

UCLA’s gymnasts finished second (Kristen Maloney), third (Kate Richardson) and fourth (Jeanette Antolin) on the uneven bars and Antolin tied Utah’s Melissa Vituj for third on floor exercise.

Although the Bruins were shut out of top spots, earlier in the day senior Jamie Dantzscher won the AAI American Award as the nation’s top senior gymnast and assistant coach Chris Waller was named national assistant coach of the year.

Stanford’s Kristen Smyth was chosen coach of the year for leading the Cardinal to the 2004 Pac-10 title and a school-best third place finish Friday night in the team finals.

Dantzscher helped the Bruins win three NCAA team championships to go along with her four NCAA individual titles.

She leaves college holding the school record for most first-team All-American honors (12) and most perfect 10 scores (28).

“It’s bittersweet,” she said. “I’m so happy to have finished with another team title but it’s really sad that I’m leaving this team and that I won’t be doing gymnastics any more.”

Richardson suggested that the Bruins may have been a little tired after putting forth strong back-to-back performances in Thursday night’s qualifying and Friday night’s team championships.

“I wanted to have a good day and hit my events,” Richardson said, “but we were all so exhausted after being up so much the last three days.”

“This tournament has been amazing,” Antolin said. “I haven’t processed it all yet but I’m so proud to be a member of UCLA gymnastics.”