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SUNDAY, MARCH 4 –
Seattle Pacific at San Jose State quad meet, 2:00 p.m. PST
The Event Center / San Jose, Calif.
• Live Scoring: http://www.sjsuspartans.com/livestats/w-gym/sjsu_af_cmu_spu18.htm
 
The Seattle Pacific gymnasts visit San Jose, California on Sunday, March 4 at 2 p.m. PST to start a brief two-meet road trip. SPU and host San Jose State will be joined by Air Force and Central Michigan. The three NCAA Division I opponents, all of which boast a team score above 194.000, will be elite competition for the Division II Falcons, who achieved a best mark of 192.825 last week. Those are three of the 14 NCAA Division I opponents on the regular-season schedule for SPU. This is the 45th season of intercollegiate gymnastics competition at Seattle Pacific and the 43rd with Coach Laurel Tindall at the helm.
 
Sunday's Field
Seattle Pacific is the only NCAA Division II competitor in the four-team field at San Jose State. Central Michigan is ranked No. 29 nationally with a high score of 196.375. San Jose State is ranked No. 48 with a high of 194.500. The Spartans won the 2017 MPSF championship, the conference meet that saw Air Force place fourth and SPU fifth. Air Force ranks 57th nationally with a best score of 194.475. Seattle Pacific is listed 66th among all college teams (192.825) in the rankings that are dominated by Division I squads. The Falcons are rated 12th among teams vying for the eight-team USA Gymnastics Collegiate Championships scheduled for April 13-15 in Denton, Texas.
 


Gym Shorts
The Falcons picked up their first event wins of the year on Feb. 23 as Darian Burns was first in the all-around (39.150), vault (9.825) and floor exercise (9.850) while Itzia San Roman topped the balance bema field (9.825) ... All 14 SPU gymnasts that competed this year earned at least one score of 9.50 or better ... Sophomore Sienna Brane posted the top uneven bars score for a Falcon in four of seven meets ... SPU gymnasts earned scores of 9.70 or higher 35 times this season ... Burns was the co-national champion as a freshman on the floor with a score of 9.90 at the 2017 USAGym Collegiate meet.
 
Last Week
Darian Burns topped 39 points for the first time in her career to win the all-around title on Feb. 23. She was also victorious in the vault (9.825) and tied for first on the floor exercise (9.850). Burns wasn't SPU's only standout as Itzia San Roman took first place on the balance team (9.825), leading the Falcons to a season-high score of 192.825 and second place in their home meet against Sacramento State (194.075) and Alaska Anchorage (191.950) in Brougham Pavilion. Burns' all-around total of 39.150 tied for first place and was the sixth-highest score in school history. The record is 39.400 by Maria Hundley in 2016. Burns is the sixth Falcon to reach the 39-point plateau in all-around competition, including both of her assistant coaches: Sarah Jean (Sullivan) Marshall scored 39.100 in 2007 and Deni (Boswell) Maxwell tallied 39.025 points in 1998.
 
Young Falcons
Six SPU gymnasts made their collegiate debuts this year, all of them freshmen. Jadacie Durst, Autumn Huskie, Haven Lanzador, Kylie Reese, Shelbi Spivey and McKenna Zimmermann combined for 67 of the team's 168 routines ... The SPU roster lists just one senior, Brittany Atchison ... Twelve of the 16 total gymnasts are underclassmen and just three are juniors: Kylee Gauna, Carly Kano, Itzia San Roman.
 
2017 Recap
The Falcons made their eighth straight USA Gymnastics Championships appearance, placing fifth at the national meet April 7-9 in Brougham Pavilion. Darian Burns qualified for event finals on the vault, bars and floor and capped her freshman season with a season-best 9.90 to share national championship floor honors with Bridgeport's Brianna Comport. Burns was seventh on the vault and bars. Senior Kristi Hayashida placed fourth on the beam, while three other Falcons reached the event finals; Ariana Harger (floor, 12th, 9.650), Lauren Glover (floor, 14th, 9.575) and Breanna Beltran (bars, 15th, 9.625). SPU achieved a season-high score of 194.100 at Washington in the final regular-season meet and finished fifth at the MPSF Championships with a mark of 192.775.
 
Proud History
SPU earned invitations to 35 of the last 36 championship meets, winning national titles in 1986 (NCAA Division II), 1992 (USGF) and 1997 (USGF). Falcons' gymnasts have collected 31 national individual crowns and 207 All-America awards.
 
2018 Preview
Youth will be served in generous portions at Seattle Pacific gymnastics meets this season. Just one senior (Brittany Atchison) and three juniors appear on the 16-gymast roster that features 12 underclassmen -- six freshmen and six sophomores. Opportunities will be plentiful for young Falcons to soar, like current sophomore Darian Burns did in her first collegiate campaign. Burns was the team's top all-arounder in her inaugural meet and concluded the season by winning the floor exercise national championship with a season-best score of 9.90. Junior Itzia San Roman was a significant three-event specialist who will compete in the all-around after adding the bars to her repertoire. She joins the lineup that features sophomore Sienna Brane, who has a 9.75 on the bars to her credit. Another sophomore, Miyuki Matsune, excelled on bars, beam and floor and may join the vault crew to provide another all-arounder. The vault group includes sophomore Lena Wirth, who topped out at 9.750 last year. Many members of the stellar group of six newcomers will likely contribute immediately. All six are from different states, none of them from Washington: Jadacie Durst (Nevada), Autumn Huskie (Colorado), Haven Lanzador (Ohio), Kylie Reese (Oregon), Shelbi Spivey (Texas) and McKenna Zimmermann (California). SPU is in pursuit of its 36th championship meet berth in the last 37 years, all of them under 43rd-year coach Laurel Tindall. She is an SPU graduate (1975), as are her assistant coaches, Sarah Jean Marshall (2007) and Deni Maxwell (1998). The Falcons won team national championships in 1986, 1992 and 1997. They take on an ambitious schedule that includes 14 NCAA Division I opponents. The Division II Falcons seek to improve upon the fifth-place national result they accomplished at the 2017 USAGym meet.
 
Coach Tindall
Laurel Tindall (Anderson) was there the very first time a group of Seattle Pacific gymnasts marched onto the competition floor in 1974. Now, more than four decades later, she still is an integral part of a program that she helped nurture and lead to a prominent spot on the national scene since taking the coaching reigns in 1976. Whether as an athlete, coach or international-level judge, Tindall has spent a lot of time at the top of the gymnastics world. As she enters her 43rd year as head coach, Tindall's SPU teams have won three national championships (1997, 1992, 1986). Falcon athletes garnered 31 national crowns, one of which she earned on the vault in 1975. Tindall has been named the national Coach of the Year four times, most recently in 2003. And, in a tribute to all of her accomplishments in the SPU gym, Tindall was a charter member of the Falcon Legends Hall of Fame. She also operates the Falcon Gymnastics Center for local youth.
 
Home Sweet Brougham
Seattle Pacific hosts four 2018 home meets at Brougham Pavilion on campus. The arena is located at the corner of Third Avenue West and Nickerson Street (3414 Third Ave. W, Seattle, WA, 98119). Brougham has hosted the national championship meet four times, most recently in 2017 when the Falcons finished fifth. Along with the already completed meets on Jan. 12, Jan. 26 and Feb. 23, SPU hosts Air Force on Saturday, March 17 at 2 p.m.
 
Next Week
The Falcons compete across town at Washington on Friday, March 9 at 8 p.m. for a triangular meet with UC Davis.