March 15, 2003

Chicago, Ill. - It's that time of year when scoring becomes very critical when deciding if a collegiate women's gymnastics team visits the postseason.

The UIC women's gymnastics team realized that on Saturday and posted a school record breaking score of 196.350 as the Flames dominated Northern Illinois (192.05) at the UIC Physical Education Building in their home season finale.

Saturday's performance bested UIC's output from a year ago at the Midwest Independent Championships where they Flames posted a 196.025.

UIC took at least the top-two places in each event, including the top-five slots on bars, the first four places on floor and first three on beam.

Veronique Meunier won the all-around competition with a personal-best of 39.325. The freshman also won the vault competition with a performance of 9.9.

Regine Charron equaled Atlin Mitchell to win the floor competition with score of 9.9.

As a team on floor, UIC broke the school mark, as the Flames totaled a 49.4 to eclipse the old mark of 49.3 set at last year's Midwest Independent Championships.

On beam, the Flames put it all together, as Stacey Magiera won the title with a score of 9.85.

Holly Bruhn led the UIC barrage on bars with an impressive 9.9, while Jamie Grabowski, Magiera and Meunier each added 9.875's to tie for second.

The Flames will return to action on Sunday, March 23, at the Illinois Classic hosted by NIU at 2:00 p.m. in DeKalb.