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USA Gymnastics Women's Collegiate National Championships
Kitty Magee Arena in Pioneer Hall • Denton, Texas

THURSDAY, APRIL 15 --
Team Semifinal Session 1 & All-Around Final, 12:00 p.m. PDT (2 p.m. CDT)

FRIDAY, APRIL 16 --
Team Final, 5:00 p.m. PDT (7 p.m. CDT)

SATURDAY, APRIL 17 --
Individual Event Finals, 3:00 p.m. PDT (5 p.m. CDT)

They're back! After a one-year absence, Seattle Pacific is headed to the 2010 USA Gymnastics Women's Collegiate National Championships. The three-day meet begins Thursday, April 15 at Pioneer Hall in Denton, Texas. Eight teams and 18 individual qualifiers converge on the campus of Texas Woman's University to compete for team and individual national titles. The team semifinals are conducted in two sessions, taking place on Thursday, April 15. The individual all-around winner will be determined on Thursday. The top-two teams from each semifinal advance to the team finals on Friday, April 16. SPU placed among the top-three teams in 14 of the 23 previous USAG meets. Thursday's top 10 individual finishers on each apparatus qualify for the event finals on Saturday, April 17.

Follow the Action
You can follow the progress of the USAG Championships on the internet via a live webcast that is available at the Texas Woman's University athletics website. Livestats can also be accessed by going to www.TWUathletics.com and clicking on the “LiveStats” link in the lower right corner.

The Field
SPU will participate in the first of two semifinal sessions on Thursday and open the meet on the uneven bars. Also in the first group will be Air Force, Bridgeport and Rutgers. The second session teams are Cornell, Temple, Texas Woman's and William & Mary. The top two scoring teams in each session compete in Friday's four-team finals.

USAG History
The Falcons have won three national championships in gymnastics. They captured the 1986 NCAA Division II crown and the 1992 and 1997 titles after USA Gymnastics took over as the sponsor. The collegiate national championships include primarily NCAA Division II and III members. Some Division I schools that choose to adhere to the limit of 7 1/2 scholarships also compete at the USAG meet. The Falcons' streak of 27 consecutive national championship meet berths that began in 1982 was stopped last season. SPU did not compete as a team in New Haven, Conn. despite finishing eighth in the qualifying ratings. Only eight teams receive USAG bids and the final spot went to No. 11 Southern Connecticut State due to a provision that grants an automatic berth to the hosting school. Four SPU gymnasts competed as individuals last year and then-senior Brianna Schwartz won the uneven bars title. She became the 22nd individual national champion in SPU gymnastics history. Current Falcons sophomore Kaysha Heck also medaled on the bars, placing third. SPU junior Laura Willis was 17th in the all-around.

Quotable
“It is good to qualify to nationals again and is definitely the result of lots of hard work over the last month,” said Laurel Tindall, who is in her 35th year as head coach at SPU. “The team seems to be peaking for the end of the season and hopefully we can carry the confidence we have had in the last two meets to Texas with us.”

Recent Recap
The Falcons are coming off their finest meet of the season with a runner-up performance in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Championships on March 27 at Brougham Pavilion. SPU shattered its previous season-best score with a mark of 192.850. Only three teams among the eight USAG championship competitors have recorded a higher score this season. Highlighting SPU's stellar score at the conference meet was a school-record team score of 48.775 on the balance beam and the first-place floor exercise mark of 9.90 turned in by sophomore Sherah Veron.

Gym Shorts
All 14 Falcons that competed this year posted a score of 9.50 or better in at least one event ... Junior Anissa Madrid ranks No. 7 among all USAG collegiate all-around and beam performers ... The Falcons had a season-high 192.850 in the last outing on Mar. 27, surpassing their previous best of 190.575 ... Sophomore Sherah Veron is SPU's top-ranked gymnast in two events in the USAG ratings. She compiled the team's best score of 9.750 on vault (No. 20 ranking) and 9.900 on floor (No. 20).

Proud History
Seattle Pacific is one of the country's premier NCAA Division II women's gymnastics programs, having won national championships in 1986, 1992 and 1997. The Falcons earned invitations to 27 consecutive championship meets (1982-2008) before narrowly missing a qualifying berth last season. SPU gymnasts have collected 22 national crowns and collected 147 All-America awards.

Coach Tindall
Laurel Tindall (Anderson) was there the very first time a group of Seattle Pacific gymnasts marched onto the competition floor in 1974. Now, 36 years later, she still is an integral part of a program that she helped nurture and lead to a prominent spot on the national scene since taking the coaching reigns in 1976. Whether as an athlete, coach or international-level judge, Tindall has spent a lot of time at the top of the gymnastics world. As she enters her 35th year as head coach, Tindall's SPU teams have won three national championships. Falcon athletes garnered 22 national crowns, one of which she earned on the vault in 1975. Tindall has been named the national Coach of the Year four times, most recently in 2003. And, in a tribute to all of her accomplishments in the Seattle Pacific gym, Tindall is a charter member of the Falcon Legends Hall of Fame. Tindall also operates the Falcon Gymnastics Center for local youths.

Strenuous Schedule
Seattle Pacific is an NCAA Division II member that competes alongside Division I and II foes for the USA Gymnastics Collegiate championship. The Falcons entire regular-season schedule was comprised of NCAA Division I opponents.

Season Outlook
Youth still dominates the roster, but experience is in greater supply for the 2010 edition of Seattle Pacific gymnastics. The team is built around a 10-gymnast sophomore class that saw a great deal of competition last year in their collegiate debuts. The Falcons have just five juniors and no seniors. Laurel Tindall, in her 35th season as SPU's coach, is optimistic. “We've got some great talent. Our top three are reasonably strong on each event, it's just numbers four, five and six that we need to solidify.” The biggest task will be replacing uneven bars national champion Brianna Schwartz, SPU's top all-arounder in 2009. Helping fill that void is the full-time return of junior Anissa Madrid, who missed all but the final meet last year. Madrid posted the team's best all-around score (38.825) in 2008. “She's easily capable of winning nationals. She has all of the ingredients,” says Tindall. The Falcons add freshmen Stephanie Wagner and Ami Khauv to a bevy of event specialists in its pursuit of their 28th championship meet berth in the last 29 years. The bars lineup features sophomore Kaysha Heck, the bronze medalist at the 2009 USAG meet.