UW double-threat Dockendorf leads the quest for title

Sports just seem to come better in pairs for Carly Dockendorf.

The University of Washington senior is a two-sport star. The native of Port Moody, B.C., is the captain and top performer on the UW gymnastics team, one of six teams participating in the West Regionals of NCAA women's gymnastics tomorrow at 5 p.m. at Edmundson Pavilion. The top two teams advance to the NCAA championships at Auburn, April 21-23.

Dockendorf also ranks among the country's leading collegiate pole vaulters. In March, one day after competing in a gymnastics meet in Salt Lake City against top-ranked Utah, she flew to Arkansas and placed 17th in the pole vault at the NCAA track-and-field indoor championships.

"I've done two or three sports at a time every year of my life except for two years," said the 5-foot-4 Dockendorf. "I guess I was a slacker then."

Last year Dockendorf finished 11th in the pole vault at the NCAA outdoor track championships. Earlier that spring she was Washington's lone qualifier at the NCAA gymnastics championships, tying for 24th on floor.

That's a rare twin bill: one athlete competing in two Division I NCAA championships in the same year. No one around the school is certain of how often such a feat has been accomplished.

She got her start in gymnastics at age 3 and at various times in life she has tried soccer, rugby, skiing, volleyball, even wrestling. She concluded her three-year high-school wrestling career being named British Columbia's top junior-class wrestler in the 54-kilo class (119 pounds).

"I've got two brothers," she said. "That helped prepare me."

Gymnastics is great preparation for pole vaulting, she said, noting that her three elite pole-vault teammates have that background. Just two weeks after she first picked up a pole, she cleared 12 feet, 2 inches.

"When you pole vault, you just swing your body out into a handstand," she said. "It's an easy transition. It's like walking for us."

Success in gymnastics for Dockendorf would be to see the Huskies qualify for the national championships as a team.

"That's the ultimate goal," she said, "and it hasn't happened for us yet."

UW will participate in a regional meet for the 24th straight year but has not reached the championship round since 1998, when the Huskies finished seventh.

Dockendorf, ranked 18th nationally on the beam and 37th in all-around, has scored more perfect 10s (five on floor, one on bars) than any UW gymnast in history. Her goal, she said, is to advance as a team.

"This is a team sport," Dockendorf said. "We train as a team, win as a team, lose as a team. I was the only member of our team to reach nationals as an individual last year, and it really wasn't that rewarding.

"I want to do everything I can to help us get to nationals."