ATHENS, Ga. - Head gymnastics coach Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart and freshman Ashley Shible (Palm Harbor, Fla.) both participated in a press conference Wednesday afternoon prior to the NCAA National Collegiate Gymnastics Championships, which begin Thursday at Stegeman Colisuem on the University of Georgia campus. Here are their comments:

HEAD COACH MELISSA KUTCHER-RINEHART
"I just want to echo some of the same comments from the other coaches, that we're obviously very excited to be here. With missing by such a slim margin last year, we're really excited about this honor and opportunity. We also have a very young team - we lost five seniors last year and battled some injuries this year so it's been a little bit of a turbulent year for us, but I'm just so excited that their hard work has paid off in the end. The student-athletes really deserve this honor."

FRESHMAN ALL-AROUNDER ASHLEY SHIBLE
"I just wanted to say that we're really excited to be here, because I know it's my first NCAA Nationals, and it's actually the team's first, too, so we've worked really hard to get here, we're really excited, and we want to have some fun here."

QUESTIONS:
FOR SHIBLE: You mentioned last year that your team came so close to making it to Boise [site of the 2000 NCAA National Championships]; talk about the motivation and being so close and what you all did to make it come true for you this year.
"I'm actually a freshman this year, so I wasn't there to experience it last year, but through all of my teammates, I've felt the motivation that they've had, and what they've wanted to do. They knew they wanted to go to Nationals, so I've felt it through them. It [this season] was a fun time - we've worked really hard to get here. We can't wait to go out and show them what we can do."

FOR KUTCHER-RINEHART: I asked Greg Marsden [Utah head coach] on the vaulting [at the 2001 North Central Region Championships, in which Denver placed second behind Utah], and how they fell three times on the event and it was almost their undoing. With the single-vault rule this year, does it make it that much more testy of an event and how that can make it anybody's event?
"I think so, I think it was very competitive in our region, and it did go to show that one mistake in our region could have made the difference. And I think Greg got a taste of that himself, and he'd admit that the one vault did make a difference. But it was an exciting competition, and I think that's one of the reasons that the competition was so exciting."