March 18, 2009

Columbia, Mo. - The Big 12 Conference office has named junior Sarah Shire as Big 12 Gymnast of the Week, marking the sixth time this season the Columbia native has taken home the honor. She now leads the conference in weekly awards garnered this year.

Shire's award comes after her ninth all-around crown of the year this past weekend in the No. 14 Tigers' 196.425-195.950 win over No. 9 Oregon State. The nine all-around titles in is a season is the most in 30 years of Missouri gymnastics. She took top honors by a score of 39.475, as well as the vault and uneven bars title with scores of 9.825 and 9.9, respectively.

This is the third week in a row that Shire has stood as Gymnast of the Week - one of two Big 12 gymnasts to do that this season. She received the title two weeks ago after a career-high performance of 39.575 in her all-around win at the Cat Classic. She received the honor two weeks before after her performance at Beauty and the Beast, and was also Co-Big 12 Gymnast of the Week in January with Nebraska junior Kylie Stone. Shire won the award outright the week before. Senior Alicia Hatcher (Blue Springs, Mo.) was also named Big 12 Event Specialist of the Week that week. Shire has been one of the most dominating gymnasts in the conference this year. She has now won the top title in nine of ten meets this year, and has taken 18 individual event titles.

This is the seventh career weekly award for Shire -- in addition to the awards earlier this year, she was named Co-Big 12 Gymnast of the Week after putting up a 39.500 against Centenary in February 2008. Shire was also named the Big 12's Newcomer of the Year for 2008, and was picked for the first-team All-Big 12 on vault and for the All-Big 12 Championship team on beam.

The performance last Friday pushed Shire to No. 10 in the country, sixth on the beam, ninth on vault, No. 39 on the floor and No. 27 on bars. She is first overall in the Big 12, and also ranks first on the vault and second on bars and beam. She is eighth in the conference on the floor.

Shire will be in action this weekend as the No. 14 Tigers travel to Ames, Iowa seeking their first-ever Big 12 title. The meet starts at 2 p.m. on Saturday. A highlight video will be available at Big12Sports.com, and live scoring will be linked to mutigers.com during the meet.

Stay with mutigers.com throughout the week for news and updates going into Big 12 competition.