LOS ANGELES - The Pac-10 Conference Women's Gymnastics Championships team title was claimed by Stanford University tonight in UCLA's Pauley Pavilion. The Cardinal totaled a team score of 195.275 to claim its first ever Pac-10 title and become the first school other than UCLA or Oregon State to win the crown. Stanford took the lead from UCLA after the fourth rotation when the Cardinal notched their highest team score of the meet with a 49.150.

Oregon State (194.950) and Arizona State (194.900) each used their final rotations to improve their finish to second and third respectively. Both pulled ahead of host UCLA who finished fourth with a 194.700 total.

Washington finished fifth with a score of 193.700, followed by Arizona (192.800) and California (189.200) who rounded out the field.

In the individual scoring, UCLA's Stella Umeh won the all-around crown with a career high 39.6 and also claimed the event titles in both the Floor Exercise (career high and Pauley Pavilion record-tying 9.95) and Balance Beam (9.925). A UCLA gymnast also won the event title in the Vault as sophomore Lena Degteva scored a career high 9.925. Oregon State's Deanne Droegemueller won the Uneven Parallel Bars title with a 9.975 score.

Stanford head coach Mark Cook, who spent the last three years as an assistnat at UCLA, commented after the meet, "It just feels really exciting to come back to Pauley Pavilion and feel the success with this team that I felt last year with UCLA. I miss UCLA, but I love competing in this arena. It just feels really good to win here. Hopefully we'll be back next month for NCAAs."

In voting conducted yesterday and announced following today's meet, University of Washington head coach Bob Levesque was named the Pac-10 Conference Coach of the Year and UCLA senior Stella Umeh was named the Pac-10 Gymnast of the Year.