University of North Carolina Athletics
Bumpers Makes Third Appearance At Nationals
April 19, 2005 | Women's Gymnastics
April 19, 2005
AUBURN, ALA. - Junior Courtney Bumpers travels to Auburn University Thursday to compete in the 2005 NCAA Championships for gymnastics. Bumpers will compete in Session I of the preliminary round, which begins Thursday at 2 p.m. EDT at Auburn's Beard-Eves Memorial Coliseum. She will rotate with Penn State, performing on floor exercise in the third rotation. Gymnasts with the top four scores in the preliminary round will compete in the individual event finals Saturday.
Bumpers, the 2005 Southeast Region Gymnast of the Year, qualified for nationals by winning the Southeast Regional title on floor exercise with a score of 9.95. A 9.95 was the winning score in five of the six regionals, including one from Bumpers' 2004 co-champion Ashley Miles of Alabama. Top-ranked Utah's Annabeth Eberle, Nebraska's Emily Parsons and UCLA's Tasha Schwikert and Kristen Maloney matched Miles' and Bumpers' regional scores, while LSU's April Burkholder won the title with a 9.975. Bumpers will be pitted against gymnasts from Utah, Nebraska, LSU, Michigan, Oklahoma and Penn State in the preliminary round.
Bumpers is making her way to nationals for the third straight year, but this is the first time she will be concentrating on a single event in the preliminary round. In 2003 she advanced to the finals on balance beam, finishing fourth. Last year, she tied Miles for the national title on floor exercise, earning a 9.9375. She is one of three gymnasts in the history of the Carolina program to compete at the national championships, but the only one to do so multiple times.
Players Mentioned
