Oregon State's Mandi Rodriguez is currently ranked No. 11 on the floor and No. 8 on the vault at the national level.

Beavers take on Utes in top ten showdown

No. 7 Beavers hit road once again to take on No. 2 Utah tonight in Salt Lake City

By: Sami Redmond

Posted: 3/7/08

No. 7 Oregon State packed its bags again.

The Beavers headed to Salt Lake City, where today they will take on the No. 2 Utah Utes for their third straight away meet.

The Beavers are coming off a loss last weekend to UCLA where they earned a team score of 195.95. Despite several scores in the 9.9 range, falls became the Beavers downfall on the floor, beam and vault which led to their second loss of the season. UCLA is the only team that OSU has lost to so far this season.

Oregon State is also fresh off a win last Friday against Cal State Fullerton 196.375- 193.1.

"At Fullerton overall I think we had a really great meet," Mandi Rodriguez said. "We worked as a team really well and we had a lot of energy. We had UCLA on Sunday and we had a lot of mistakes here and there, but we had some great routines, a lot of them hit 9.9's on different events."

This week OSU is ranked among the top ten in the country on all four events. Oregon State currently holds the No. 7 spot on floor, No. 5 (beam), No. 10 (bars), and No. 7 (vault). However, Utah is ranked among the top five on every event ranking No. 3 on floor, No. 2 (beam), No. 4 (bars), and No. 3 (vault).

Both teams also have gymnasts that are ranked among the top 25 this week. OSU's Jami Lanz is No. 6 in the all-around, No. 14 on floor, and No. 3 on beam. Mandi Rodriguez is ranked No. 11 on the floor and No. 8 on the vault. Meanwhile, Tasha Smith claims the No. 24 spot on floor and the No. 16 spot on vault.

"Our focus is mainly going to be getting in there and being confident at everything you do," Lanz said. "And you go at it with 100 percent as you do in the gym in practice."

All of Oregon State's ranked gymnasts are All-Americans, but they will be put to the test against Utah's No. 1 ranked all-around gymnast Ashley Postell. She is also No. 4 on floor, No. 1 (beam), No. 9 (bars), and No. 3 (vault). The Ute's other all-arounder Kristina Baskett is No. 7 in the all-around with a No. 4 ranking on the bars and the No. 9 spot on the vault.

The consistency that OSU had been enjoying for the past 8 competitions was rattled on Sunday when Oregon State suffered mistakes in the beginning of lineups.

"We had some mistakes and some difficulties in the first part of lineups on mostly all of the events," Rodriguez said. "So I think that's something that we need to work on in the gym before we go to Utah. Making sure that the front of the lineup realizes that they are just as important as the end of lineup."

Another factor for OSU will be their competitive endurance.

"It was a long weekend, having two meets in one weekend, which we haven't done all year," assistant head coach Michael Chaplin said. "They handled it pretty well, but I do think that we saw a little bit of fatigue by the Sunday meet."

According to Chaplin, Oregon State still needs to work on consistency when presented with back-to-back competitions.

"What we learned is this is how post-season is going to be," Lanz said. "If we make it to Super Six we are going to compete potentially three days in a row. We learned what we need to do and how we need to prepare ourselves."

The Beavers and the Utes will battle it out Friday starting at 6 p.m.

Sami Redmond, sports writer

sports@dailybarometer.com