Husky sophomore Ashley Houghting and first year coach Joanne Bowers each took home slices of a Pac-10 title Saturday at the Pac-10 women’s gymnastics championships at Arizona State University.

Houghting was her usual self on vault, nailing an almost perfect Yurchenko full to tie for the Pac-10 title on the event with UCLA standout Tasha Schwikert. Bowers, a transplant from Michigan who has been working hard to turn around Washington’s fledgling program, was named Pac-10 coach of the year along with Stanford coach Kristen Smyth.

Bowers’ award is well deserved, senior Chelsea Bakken said.

“Our program’s doing a lot better within just a year. [Joanne] works so hard and she’s so motivated; it was really cool,” Bakken said.

Bowers said she was “shocked” to receive the award, which she attributed to the work of the entire coaching staff.

“It was almost like, for our coaching staff and our program, it kind of validated everything we’d done this year,” she said.

The Huskies showed what a difference a year makes by upsetting host ASU during the competition, moving up from sixth to fifth in the tournament.

“You’d have thought we won the whole thing, we were so excited,” Bowers said. “The team performed absolutely beautifully … I couldn’t have been more proud of this group of young ladies.”

Washington began the competition on floor exercise and showed six solid routines, but felt conservative scoring hampered the team. In the opening rounds of a large meet, judges sometimes throw out relatively low scores in order to leave themselves somewhere to mark higher later in the competition.

From floor, the UW went to vault, where freshman Cassidy Lance scored a 9.9. Houghting also came through and delivered the kind of performance Washington gymnastics fans have come to expect from the sophomore, who now holds the school title for career wins on vault. Junior Natalie Gillan, whose vault is one of the most difficult in collegiate competition, scored a 9.85. Bars and beam were among the best of the season, with each gymnast fighting to add tenths to the team score.

Schwikert, the Pac-10 gymnast of the year, dominated the meet.

The Bruins, who are rebounding from a disappointing 2006 season where they did not qualify to the NCAA championships as a team, showed no signs of weakness. Schwikert, a member of the U.S. Olympic team in 2000 and an alternate in 2004, won the all-around with a near-perfect 39.75 and helped the Bruins best rival Stanford 197.2-196.95.

OSU, playing spoiler to the Pac-10’s two top-ranked teams, came up third with a 196.3. Arizona was fourth with a 196.

Washington’s brightest moment was Houghting’s vault, but the meet was notable for the way Husky gymnasts met a long-held goal of consistency in competition. The team did not have to count a fall toward its team score on any event.

Bakken said beating ASU is a testament to what the Huskies can accomplish when they’re on and other teams miss.

“ASU has more talent than we do, straight up,” Bakken said. But mediocre performances on three events, and having to count falls on floor and beam, took the Sun Devils out of the running for a top-five spot. “We had a very good meet. We didn’t have to count any falls. It kind of all came together when we wanted it to.”

Bowers said she felt the win is applicable going into the upcoming regional championships at Cal Apr. 14, where the top two teams will be awarded team berths to the NCAA championships.

“You never know what could happen,” Bowers said.

Reach reporter Blythe Lawrence at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.