Gymnastics: Cox Qualifes for Finals
April 27, 2007 11:41 AM | General
April 26, 2007
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – West Virginia University senior gymnast Janáe Cox qualified for the NCAA individual event finals on Saturday after tying for third with a score of 9.85 on the floor exercise in the NCAA preliminary session at the Huntsman Center Thursday night.
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| All-American Janáe Cox
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By placing in the top four of the event, Cox not only qualifies for the finals but is also named a first team All-American on floor. She becomes just the third WVU gymnast to be named a first team All-American and is first gymnast to earn All-America honors since Kristen Macrie was named to the second team on bars in 2000.
“I’m happy that I’ll get to compete one last time,” Cox says. “This has been a great experience already and now to get a chance to compete with the best girls in the country again is even better. It’s funny, because I didn’t even find out I qualified until after the meet on my way to dinner. I thought that was my last meet ever.”
Cox will compete with the top four individuals from each session in each event (plus ties) in the individual-event competition Saturday, April 28, at 7 p.m.
“We are so excited for Janáe,” coach Linda Burdette says. “She hit all four of her routines and when we found out that her floor score qualified her for the finals and as an All-American, we almost couldn’t believe it.”
Cox competed as an all-arounder in rotation with the University of Michigan. The Otisco, Ind., native placed 10th in her preliminary session in the all-around with a composite score of 39.075. That all-around score was a school record 37th time that Cox had scored at least 39.0 or better at a meet in her career.
In addition to her 9.85 floor routine, Cox scored a 9.75 on vault (34th), a 9.775 on bars (21st) and 9.7 on the balance beam (34th).
Utah, Stanford and UCLA all advanced to the Super Six from the second preliminary session. They join Georgia, Florida and Nebraska, who were the top three teams in the first preliminary session.
