Three Arizona gymnasts will compete as individuals tonight in the first round of the NCAA Championships in Salt Lake City.

Arizona lost the chance to compete as a team when it was defeated by Stanford and Oregon State in the West Regional at McKale Center April 14.

However, the top finishers on each apparatus whose teams don’t qualify still earned the chance to compete on their own.

UA senior Jamie Holton will compete on beam after taking first at regionals with a career-high 9.925, and junior Karin Wurm and freshman Brittney Morgan will represent Arizona in the all-around.

Holton is one of three athletes in the tournament to qualify on a single event.

“”It’s exciting that of the schools with individuals, we’re the only school that has more than one individual here,”” said UA head coach Bill Ryden.

“”They look fantastic in practice, but in reality they look just like they did before regionals, which is how they got here.””

Today’s competition is broken into two sessions, with six teams competing in each session. The top four individuals from each event and the all-around will advance to individual event finals on Saturday.

All three Arizona gymnasts will perform in tonight’s session, although each will rotate with a different team. Wurm will follow Louisiana State, Morgan will follow UCLA and Holton will compete with Denver during the third rotation.

Holton will act like a fourth coach when she’s done competing, Ryden said.

“”The coaches will be running around because there’ll be many times when Brittney and Karin, who are both all-arounders, will actually be competing at the exact same time in different parts of the gym,”” Ryden said.