Feb. 22, 2007

FULLERTON, CA - After a solid win over Alaska Anchorage in their last home meet, the Cal State Fullerton women's gymnastics team hits the road for one of its toughest tests of the season as the Titans travel to No. 6 UCLA for a quad meet featuring the host Bruins, No. 11 Denver, and California in the second annual John Wooden Challenge on Sunday afternoon (Feb. 25) at 2 p.m. at Pauley Pavilion.

The meet will honor all the competing teams' academic and athletic achievements as well as the legendary Coach Wooden himself.

LIVE COVERAGE: Live scoring and streaming video will be available by logging on to UCLA's official athletic website at www.uclabruins.com. Fans can access the live scoring by clicking here and can view the streaming video by clicking here. Due to the nature of the four-team meet, the video coverage will be mainly focused on the Bruins' competitors, with others shown as time permits. The meet will also be televised on a delayed basis on local Time Warner cable station LA36 at a date yet to be announced.

IN THE RANKINGS: UCLA is ranked No. 6 in the nation with a regional qualifying score of 195.650. Denver is No. 11 in the nation with an RQS of 195.289. California and Cal State Fullerton are not ranked as of yet because neither team meets the RQS requirement of having at least three scores from away meets this season.

A LOOK BACK - ALASKA ANCHORAGE: Cal State Fullerton rebounded from a loss to UC Davis by capturing 11 of the top 12 places and cruising to a 189.375-181.775 victory over Alaska Anchorage on Feb. 18 at Titan Gym.

Fullerton's Shannon Kawada turned in the highest score of the day with a personal-best 9.80 to win the vault while teammate Nicole Lim was the day's only multiple winner, capturing the beam with a 9.60 and floor exercise with a personal-best 9.775. Kawada also placed second in a low-scoring uneven parallel bars competiton with a 9.375. Teammate Jamie Howe was the winner at 9.40.

Alaska-Anchorage spoiled a Titan sweep when Lauren Agostino took second in vault with a 9.775.

LIM JUST WINS, BABY: With her victories on beam and floor against the Seawolves last week, Cal State Fullerton senior Nicole Lim took home at least one first-place finish for the fourth consecutive meet dating back to Jan. 26. Lim, who leads the team with a 9.621 average on beam this season, finished in a tie for first on beam at UC Davis on Feb. 9, finished first on floor against Sacramento State on Feb. 2, and won floor again in quad meet on Jan. 26 against Southern Utah, UC Davis, and Hamline University.

TITANS MATCH WIN TOTAL: While scores are more important than win-loss totals in gymnastics, the Titans did match their overall win total from all of last season (7-10) in improving to 7-2 overall in 2007. With its next win, Fullerton will have posted the most wins in a season since the 2003 squad finished 11-8 overall en route to a berth in the NCAA Regionals.

ALL AROUND PERFORMANCES: Of the 19 student-athletes listed on its 2007 roster, 15 Titans have seen action this season, but Fullerton has not had a single all-around competitor through its first six meets.

TITANS FLOORING IT: The Titans' floor lineup set a new season high with a 48.425 last weekend against Alaska Anchorage as five of Fullerton's six routines were scored at 9.60 or higher. Junior Melissa Schafer, who was selected as an alternate on floor for last year's NCAA Regionals, leads the team this season with a 9.679 average while freshman Kori Underhill has made quite a splash in her rookie season as five of her six routines have been scored at 9.625 or higher and is averaging a 9.65 on floor this season - including a career-best 9.775 against the Seawolves.

CONSISTENT BARS: No, it's not the newest flavor from Ben & Jerry's. Cal State Fullerton's bars lineup has gone unchanged since the start of the season as seniors Erica Ficarrotta, Ina Higashi-Izumi, and Jaime Howe have teamed up with newcomers Britni Echeverria, Shannon Kawada, and Ashley Wang to compete in all six of the Titans' meets this season.

ON HER WAY UP: Freshman Shannon Kawada has competed for the Titans regularly on three different apparatus in 2007 and has shown rapid improvement on all three throughout the course of the season. Kawada, who set a career-high with a 9.80 on vault in the team's last meet, has rebounded from a season-opening 8.30 on the apparatus to post scores of 9.70 or better in each of her last three meets.

On bars, she leads the team with a 9.571 average, including a career-high 9.70 in a win over Sacramento State, and she also set a career high with a 9.60 on floor last weekend against Alaska Anchorage.

HEAD COACH Jill Hicks: Cal State Fullerton is entering its first season under the direction of Head Coach Jill Hicks, who was promoted to the top spot after the departure of Richard Gishi in June, 2006.

A former assistant coach 14 years at her alma mater of Oregon State, Hicks returned to her native Southern California four years ago and was a coach and choreographer at the National Gymnastics Training Center in Aliso Viejo before joining the Fullerton staff on Aug. 3, 2005.

Hicks, who is married to Titans' fifth-year wrestling coach Dan Hicks, was an elite gymnast with SCATS and a national team member, but a knee injury nipped her collegiate career in the bud.

She served as an undergraduate "coach" for the Beavers for four years until her graduation in 1982 and then returned for a full-fledged stint from 1987 through 1997. In that time period, the Beavers made nine consecutive NCAA appearances and produced 33 All-Americans and five national champions. Her primary areas of focus were balance beam and floor exercise.

ASSISTANT COACH Mace Patterson: Another new face on the sidelines for the Titans, former Nebraska men's gymnastics standout Mace Patterson joins the Cal State Fullerton women's gymnastics coaching staff for his first season in 2007.

Patterson was a four-time NCAA qualifier and the Huskers' top all-around competitor in 2004 before injuries slowed him during his 2005 senior season. He recovered from elbow surgery and closed out the regular season by winning four individual titles in the final home meet of the year against Air Force.

Patterson then closed out the year by finishing seventh on the pommel horse and eighth on high bar at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships and advanced to the preliminary round on both the pommel horse and high bar at the NCAA Championships.

A native of Beggs, Okla., Patterson just completed his second summer as a tumbler at SeaWorld in San Diego. He joined the Huskers' program after a successful junior career at the Bart Connor School of Gymnastics. He qualified for the Junior Olympic Nationals four times, earning All-America honors three times in the all-around.