March 24, 2004

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - No. 31 Maryland will travel to Raleigh, N.C., for the NCAA Southeast Regional Gymnastics Championships on Saturday, Apr. 3. Joining the Terps will be top-ranked UCLA, No. 12 North Carolina, No. 13 Nebraska, No. 21 West Virginia and No. 22 NC State. The meet will take place in the Reynolds Coliseum at 6:00 p.m.

The top two teams from the Regional meet will advance to the NCAA Championships, held April 15-17 in Los Angeles, Calif. If the underdog Maryland squad accomplishes that goal, it would be the first team to do so in school history. Also advancing to the national championships will be the highest two all-around finishers that are not on an advancing squad, as well as individual event winners that are not already automatic bids via their team or all-around score. Joining the qualified competitors in Los Angeles will be five at-large individual all-around competitors and four at-large individual event specialists.

Due to its seeding, Maryland will begin the Regional competition on the vault, and proceed in Olympic order (vault, bars, beam, floor). This is the same rotation the squad was assigned at the EAGL Championships on March 20, where the Terps had to overcome a rocky start on the vault. The team went on to score the night's highest total on the beam and tied NC State for the highest bars score, but finished in fifth place out of eight teams with a 196.025.

Maryland comes into the regional meet with a glimpse of most of the competition, having already met West Virginia, NC State and North Carolina in the regular season. The Terps are 1-2 on the season against NC State, and 0-2 against West Virginia and North Carolina.

With five of the six teams in the Southeast Regional Championships ranked in the nation's top 25, the Terps are seeded in the toughest region overall. However, the Terps know that good competitors bring out the best in themselves, as they scored a school-record 197.375 against then-No. 5 Stanford, and a 196.325 against then-No. 9 Iowa.