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Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Sunday, March 30, 2008

UW-L's Hooper shares another national title on vault

Tribune staff

CORTLAND, N.Y. — Sophomore Gabi Hooper won a national title on the vault for the second year in a row at the NCGA Division III Championships on Saturday.

Hooper scored 9.675 points and shared the title with UW-Whitewater’s Justine Weyer. As a freshman, Hooper tied teammate Jackie LaFleur for first.

Hooper became the fourth two-time national champion in UW-L history, first on the vault. Nina Schubert won three straight titles on the uneven bars from 2004-06.

The Eagles came away with four All-Americans, including Hooper (first, vault; second, beam), senior Kasey Clausen (second, uneven bars), junior Jackie LaFleur (sixth, vault) and junior Mackenzie Howard (third, beam).

Eagles coach Barb Gibson, who led UW-L to its 12th straight national team title and seventh in eight years on Friday, was named NCGA co-coach of the year with Jeff Schepers of Ursinius.

“Gabi had a great season, but it’s hard for me at this point to talk about just one of my athletes,” Gibson said. “Those four All-Americans are our leaders and I’m just thrilled for all of them.”

Hooper, from New Brighton, Minn., said winning the team championship Friday helped take the pressure off the individual portion of the meet.

“I just had to focus on hitting my vault the best that I could, and on having fun,” Hooper said. “We won last night and that was just so great and whatever happened today didn’t matter.”

For comments from all four All-Americans, see Joel Badzinski’s College Sports blog