Umphrey Ready for Last Shot

It seems odd that Chainey Umphrey, one of the nation’s top gymnasts, has never won an NCAA championship.

Umphrey, a UCLA senior, will get his last shot during the NCAA championships at New Mexico, April 16-17. And Umphrey is determined not to let this final opportunity slip away.

“I want to come home a champion on a couple things,” Umphrey said. “So when I walk away I go, ‘Wow, that was some pretty amazing stuff.’ ”

Umphrey won the all-around at the NCAA West Regional championships at Oklahoma on Saturday with a score of 57.55 to qualify for the NCAA championships.

For Umphrey, who is from Albuquerque, the NCAA championship will be special because he will be competing in his hometown.

“You couldn’t write a better script,” Umphrey said about the impending end of his career.

Although Umphrey has never won an NCAA title, he has come close. He was the NCAA runner-up on the rings in 1990 and on the high bar in 1991 to become a two-time All-American.

Likewise, his career with the U.S. national team has been bittersweet. Umphrey placed second in the all-around at the U.S. Championships in June, 1991, before sitting out the 1992 collegiate season because of a stress fracture.

Then, despite having missed a year of competition, Umphrey competed at the 1992 U.S. Olympic trials, barely missing a spot on the team.

Umphrey will try to make the 1996 U.S. Olympic team, but for the moment, the NCAA championships are the immediate task.

Umphrey has been imagining the NCAA championships.

He is undefeated in collegiate high bar competition this season, averaging 9.85.

Umphrey will have to perform well to win a title in Albuquerque next week. His competition is expected to be Minnesota’s John Roethlisberger, the two-time defending NCAA champion in the all-around, and Stanford’s Jair Lynch, a member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic team.

Umphrey edged Roethlisberger to win the all-around in the UCLA Invitational in February, but Lynch edged Umphrey in the all-around in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championships last month.

At the West Regional, the Bruins finished fourth in the team competition, failing to qualify for the team portion of the NCAA championships.

Three Bruins, in addition to Umphrey, qualified to compete in individual events: senior Brad Hayashi, vault; freshman Jim Foody, high bar and parallel bars, and freshman Stephan McCain, high bar.

Suzanne Italiano, a freshman at USC, is having a ball playing college tennis because she enjoys the team format.

She says being on a team reminds her of being with her family in Toronto.

Italiano is the youngest of seven siblings.

In Canada, Italiano was the top-ranked junior player in both singles and doubles in the age 18-and-under category. She has been ranked as high as No. 5 in the Canadian women’s tennis rankings and No. 240 in the world rankings.

But Italiano found life as a top junior player to be too solitary.

“College is such a refreshing experience because you have teammates,” Italiano said. “It’s fun to want to do so well for a team.”

Italiano, who plays No. 2 singles for USC, is part of a trio of young foreign talent that has propelled USC to a No. 5 ranking this season.

Petra Schmitt, a sophomore from Budapest, Hungary, is the Trojans’ No. 1 singles player. Maggie Simkova, a sophomore from Prague, Czech Republic, plays No. 3.

The Trojans (14-5, 4-4 in Pacific 10 Conference) lost at top-ranked Stanford, 7-0, Friday, and at sixth-ranked Cal, 5-4, Saturday. Their next match will be at 13th-ranked UCLA on Saturday.

As universities in Southern California struggle under increasing pressure to comply with Title IX, which guarantees equal opportunities for male and female athletes, Stanford is leading by example.

Ted Leland, Stanford’s athletic director, last week announced a four-year plan to enhance women’s sports at the school. The plan includes adding three varsity women’s sports, synchronized swimming in 1993-94, lacrosse in 1994-95, and water polo in 1995-96, more scholarships and new facilities.

With the addition of the three sports, Stanford will sponsor 17 women’s sports, 15 men’s sports and one co-ed sport, sailing.

Notes

Kareema Marrow of the UCLA women’s gymnastics team won the all-around with a 39.325 and the vault with a 9.925 to lead the Bruins to a first-place finish at the NCAA West Regional championships Saturday at Oregon State. UCLA advances to the NCAA championships at Oregon State on April 16.

The Pepperdine men’s and women’s tennis teams continued their dominance of the West Coast Conference. The eighth-ranked women won their sixth consecutive conference title and the 10th-ranked men won their third consecutive crown. The men have won 19 of the past 21 conference titles.

The top-ranked UCLA men’s tennis team (21-0) defeated fifth-ranked Stanford on Friday, 5-1, and Cal on Saturday, 6-0, increasing its home winning streak to 31 matches. But Jason Sher of UCLA had his 19-match winning streak snapped by Vimal Patel of Stanford.