The Red and Black

Issue date: 3/31/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: RICHARD HAMM The Gym Dogs celebrate winning the SEC championship in Duluth Saturday. The Gym Dogs beat out Alabama and Florida by just .025 points for the title. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: RICHARD HAMM Coach Suzanne Yoculan embraces Tiffany Tolnay after her vault performance at the SEC championships in Duluth Saturday. The Gym Dogs took home the championship title. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: RICHARD HAMM Courtney McCool grabs the bar during her bars routine at the SEC Championship in Duluth Saturday, scoring a 9.900 on her performance. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: RICHARD HAMM Junior Tiffany Tolnay leaps in the air during her floor exercise routine. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: SARA GUEVARA Sophomore Grace Taylor waits to hear Tolnay's score for her floor exercise routine. Tolnay scored a 9.875. [Click to enlarge]

DULUTH - They might have won, they probably lost, and, alas, they ultimately won. After some ups, some downs and a lot of questions, Grace Taylor finally got her oh-so-desired birthday present, as her Gym Dogs claimed their 16th SEC championship.

Gwinnett Arena's big boards, pseudo-official score sheets and circulating rumors variably had Georgia winning or losing, but the Gym Dogs came out on top in the end, besting both SEC defending champion Florida and Alabama by just .025 with a score of 197.350.

"It was the best birthday ever," said Taylor, who celebrated her 20th birthday in a big fashion Saturday. "It's been a great day."

The confusion began when Tiffany Tolnay's score of 9.8 on beam was accidently carried over to replace her 9.95 on the uneven bars, and then another scoring error on an Alabama vault left the official score questionable until Georgia's win finally was announced in front of an SEC Gymnastics Championship-record crowd of 9,022 at the Gwinnett Arena.

"(Georgia coach Suzanne Yoculan) said to grab this box, and we opened it," sophomore Lauren Sessler said.

The box had SEC Champion T-shirts in it.

"She's like, well, I wouldn't have told you to open it if you didn't win, so we were going crazy. And then we got word that Alabama had won. So it was kind of up and down in a 10-second period, and we just really weren't sure."

"There was some high drama in the locker room," said Yoculan, who was one of three Co-SEC Coaches of the Year. "I've never been in a situation like that where people from the scoring table didn't even know where it was. It was crazy."

With a 39.575 on the all-around, senior Katie Heenan became Georgia's all-time leading scorer. Cassidy McComb also was named the SEC's Freshman of the Year.

"I had no idea, I didn't even really know that they did SEC Freshman of the Year," said McComb, a Las Vegas, Nev. native. "I came (to Athens) really intimidated and didn't even know if I was going to be good enough to compete."

After starting the evening with shaky performances on floor and vault, the Gym Dogs stepped it up in the final two rotations following a Nikki Childs fall on bars, and managed to hold on after their beam rotation.

"That was an exciting moment, it was very déjà vu from Florida in NCAAs," Taylor said.

"It was momentum and energy and it was really exciting … we live for those moments."

The Gym Dogs topped Florida by the same margin, just .025, to claim the national title in 2007. A 49.500 on bars tied Georgia's second-best score of the season.

Saturday's strange but close meet has Yoculan convinced that the SEC is the best conference in the country.

"We need to be sharper, we need to be better to win the NCAA title," she said.

"Florida and Alabama are going to come back strong, and they're going to come back kicking just like we did last year when we went away empty-handed … I really believe that this year the national champion will come from the SEC."

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