By John Newbold

After a third-place finish at the Western Gymnastics Conference Championships two weeks ago in the Spectrum, USU has qualified for its 17th consecutive Regional Meet.

"We feel very fortunate to have qualified given an inconsistent season," coach Ray Corn said of his 7-15 squad. Despite the record Corn felt really confident that the team would qualify for regionals.

Corn added, "The last four or five meets, our level of performance has improved in just about every meet that we've gone into...and with two weeks break, here I can only expect, I truly believe we will have our finest moment at the regional meet."

The Aggies will compete in the North Central Region Gymnastics meet in Denver, Colo., on April 6. Other teams that will compete are No. 3 Georgia, No.10 Stanford, No. 14 Denver, No. 23 Missouri, and Air Force. Corn feels confident about the Aggies and excited about the others teams competing in the same region.

"Wow!" he said about competing at the same meet as Georgia.

"I honestly believe that this team believes in themselves now, they're pushing each other," Corn said.

Corn feels his squad is really prepared for the meet because of conference competition and the level of competition in the other Universities in the state. "There is no other state in the country that has four (USU, BYU, U of U, and Southern Utah) quality programs like we have in Utah," he said.

Nine other teams from the Aggies' region qualified for regional bids. Corn says this proves one thing and one thing only about Utah State and that is they are certainly competing in the strongest region (North Central region) in the country.

The season has been up and down for the Aggies. They are a young team and it hasn't been an easy thing for the coaching staff nor the gymnasts to take. Corn believes the turning point of the season was after the Missouri meet where the Aggies finished last place in a four team meet. The team held a meeting and a stern discussion took place. "Shortly after that we put the season together," he said.

Corn is in his 25th year as a head coach at Utah State and his teams at USU have competed in 24 of the last 25 years he has been here. Corn doesn't focus on the negative he said. "Where your season ends the next year begins," he said and the Aggies aren't finished yet.

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