CORVALLIS n Four seasons ago, Oregon State’s Chrissy Lamun won the Pacific-10 Conference floor exercise title as a freshman with a 10.0.

Last night, at the Pacific-10 Conference gymnastics championships in Gill Coliseum, another OSU freshman walked away as a champion.

Tasha Smith started the night with her hip-hop floor routine and landed a 9.950.

She followed that performance with a 9.925 on vault in the next OSU rotation. Both scores held up to give Smith the titles.

“It was really exciting because I’ve been injured the whole year, so I felt like I haven’t been able to show anybody what I can really do because I haven’t been able to compete,” Smith said. “So finally I came back to all-around this meet.”

Smith said she hasn’t been working on vault much because her ankles have been in bad shape. She received a 10.0 from one judge in the event.

“So to win that was great. And floor, I love doing floor, so that was exciting,” she said. “To get a 10 from a judge on vault, that was really exciting because I’ve been told that 10s aren’t given. To get it from one of the four judges felt really good.”

Smith helped the Beavers finish with their second-best score of the season, a 196.400, good for third in the meet.

Stanford took first with a 197.100 and UCLA was second with a 196.400. Arizona State finished fourth with 193.900, followed by Arizona (193.750), Washington (192.750) and California (192.725).

Lamun came close to the second title of her career, finishing tied for second with UCLA’s Jordan Schwikert on bars with a 9.90.

The Beavers started the night on floor, usually their final event for home meets, and came away with a 49.175 with Lamun and Jami Lanz n the co-Pac-10 freshman of the year n scoring 9.875s before Smith finished the rotation.

“Overall, just being able to start on floor and really lighting that fire was spectacular,” Lamun said. “(OSU coach) Tanya (Chaplin) was like, ‘OK, guys, this is your event. Let’s get the crowd into it from the start.’ And I think we went out there and did it. Our first girls hit, we all went up there and just one after another just kept getting the crowd even more excited.”

OSU then put together another strong vault effort as Smith anchored with her 9.925 and Angela Morales added a 9.875.

The Beavers scored a 49.025 on bars and had a few shaky moments on beam but managed a 48.975.

Although the score probably won’t bump the Beavers up much in the rankings, if at all, it will help the regional qualifying score some and keeps the momentum going that they built last week in the Salbasgeon Suites Invitational.

“I think when we get to regionals the competition is going to be just like this,” Lamun said. “Stanford and UCLA are amazing teams and having them out on the competition floor at the same time and all three of us chasing after each will be exactly how it will be at regionals.”

Tabitha Yim of Stanford won the all-around with a 39.650 and took the beam title with a 9.975. Teammate Liz Tricase won bars with a 9.925.

By Kevin Hampton

Corvallis Gazette-Times