March 3, 2002

PITTSBURGH-The Pittsburgh gymnastics team posted a respectable 192.575 score at New Hampshire on Saturday but unfortunately, the host Wildcats and fellow East Atlantic Gymnastics League rival West Virginia topped the Panthers.

Pittsburgh (7-9) did pick up a win in the meet over Yale but its record in the EAGL dropped to 1-4. The Wildcats won the meet with a season-high 195.275 points and the Mountaineers recorded a team score of 193.075. Yale's team score (192.100) kept its hopes of qualifying for NCAA Regionals alive.

The Panthers were without the services of senior Rebecca Singleton (Poland, Ohio/Boardman), who is the one of the team's top beam performers. She has also contributed on the vault but an injury kept her out of Saturday's meet. That forced Pittsburgh to use just five vaulters and it came back to hurt the Panthers as sophomore Erika Goldberg (Voorhees, N.J./Eastern) couldn't land her attempt and scored an 8.8.

Junior Nathalie Sulpher (Ottawa, Canada/Franco-Quest) tied the 10th highest score in team history with a 9.775 but it was not enough to keep the team score from dropping to a season-low 47.425 on the event. Sulpher tied for fourth on the vault behind TeShawne Jackson, Kari Williams and Kristen Macrie of West Virginia.

The Panthers' bars routines showed a little more consistency but couldn't reach the 48-point plateau. They were led by senior Raya Mullin (Runnemede, N.J./Triton) with a 9.775 and Diandra O'Connor (Owasso, Okla./Owasso) earned a 9.625 from the judges. Jennifer Dickson of New Hampshire won the event with a 9.875, followed by her teammate Crystal Beak and Yale's Kathryn Fong.

Without Singleton on the beam, head coach Debbie Yohman opted for sophomore Alyse Zeffiro (Holbrook, N.Y./Sachem) and Zeffiro earned a 9.575 in her first balance beam performance. Mullin and O'Connor again led the Panthers with Mullin earning a career-high 9.85 and O'Connor received a 9.8 from the judges. Mullin's score tied three other gymnasts for third place behind Beak and WVU's Amanda Halovanic.

Pittsburgh's floor team had the highest point total among the four teams with 48.9 points but lost another three-tenths of a point to deductions. Zeffiro and O'Connor led the way with identical 9.825 scores and Heather Launse (Severna Park, Md./Severna Park) added 9.8 points. Junior Lisa Yarosh (Seymour, Conn./Seymour) earned a career-high 9.75 to help the Panthers' effort. Mullin had a tenth of a point deduction to her score for stepping out of bounds while Sulpher lost 0.2 points.

The Panthers will travel to Columbus, Ohio for a dual meet at Ohio State this Saturday, March 9, at 7 p.m. before returning home for the final meet of the year against Bowling Green on March 16. That meet will be held at Fitzgerald Field House and Mullin, Singleton and Colleen Crisi (Woodhaven, Mich./Carlson) will be honored on senior night.