No. 19 Pioneers Selected to Compete at NCAA North Central Region Championships
Pioneers travel to Ames, Iowa for North Central Championships April 8

DENVER — The 2006 National Collegiate Women's Gymnastics Championships regional selections were announced today by the NCAA, and the 19th-ranked University of Denver gymnastics team will make its eighth-consecutive appearance on Saturday, April 8, at the North Central Region Championships in Ames, Iowa. The Pioneers (18-5) will be one of six teams to compete in the regional hosted by the Iowa State University. Other teams competing in the meet will be No. 4 Iowa State, No. 11 Arizona State, No. 15 Arizona, No. 21 Minnesota and No. 24 Brigham Young. The competition begins at 5 p.m. MDT.

The makeup of the 2006 North Central Region Championships are as follows, in order by seeding, with national rankings in parenthesis ( ) followed by each team's Regional Qualifying Score (RQS):

North Central Region
(4) Iowa State - 196.540 RQS
(11) Arizona State - 196.120 RQS
(15) Arizona - 195.615 RQS
(19) DENVER – 195.275 RQS
(21) Minnesota – 194.815 RQS
(24) Brigham Young - 194.450 RQS

Six teams, five all-around competitors (who are not on a qualifying team) and one individual event specialist per event [who has a minimum qualifying score (RQS) of 9.4] were named to one of six regional sites. The top two teams and the top two all-around competitors (who are not on an advancing team) from each regional will receive an automatic berth to the NCAA National Championships in Corvallis, Ore., April 20-22, hosted by Oregon State University.

Denver has competed in seven consecutive NCAA Regional competitions with its best finish coming in the 2002 season, when the Pioneers finished second and qualified for NCAA Nationals for the first time in school history. The Pioneers have sent at least one individual qualifier in each of the past four seasons.