Gymnasts honored for performances

Perfection is hard to accomplish and on Friday, Alyse Zeffiro was honored for coming up… Perfection is hard to accomplish and on Friday, Alyse Zeffiro was honored for coming up just short.

Zeffiro, who set a Pitt record by scoring a 9.95 on her floor exercise against Michigan State on March 15, earned three All-East Atlantic Gymnastics League honors for her performances during the regular season.

“Alyse has had an outstanding season for us on each of the three events she does,” head coach Debbie Yohman said in a press release. “She deserves to be mentioned among the top gymnasts in our league.”

Among the honors for Zeffiro was a unanimous first-team selection on the balance beam, in which she lead the Panthers with an average score of 9.809. Her best performance of the year came against Missouri on Jan. 18, scoring a 9.9 in Pitt’s win.

Zeffiro was also named to the first team on the floor exercise, leading Pitt with a 9.777 average score, and to the second team for the vault.

Also earning honors for the Panthers were Heather Launse and Nathalie Sulpher.

Launse, who led Pitt with an average score of 9.727 on the vault, was named to the second team on the floor exercise.

With an average score of 9.77, which was best on the team, Sulpher was named to the second team on the uneven parallel bars.

Both Launse and Sulpher set a school record on the vault this season, with Launse scoring a 9.85 against Ohio State on Feb. 16. Sulpher matched that score against Bowling Green on March 2.

Chin named new women’s soccer head coach

Sue-Moy Chin will become only the second women’s soccer head coach at Pitt, interim athletics director Marc Boehm announced on Thursday.

A graduate of Florida International University, Chin most recently was the top assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at the University of Colorado.

“I am looking forward to the opportunity for Sue-Moy Chin to join our head coaching staff,” Boehm said in a press release. “She has a great background and is focused on taking our women’s soccer program to the top of the Big East Conference.”

“I’m really excited to join the Pittsburgh family as the new head women’s soccer coach,” Chin said. “We share the same vision for the soccer program and I am anxious to get started.”

Before joining the Buffaloes’ staff in 2001, Chin served as the assistant coach at Duke for two seasons. Also in charge of recruiting, Chin brought in a top 20 class in 2000 and helped the Blue Devils reach the final of the Atlantic Coast Conference and the NCAA Tournament that year.

Chin was also an assistant coach at Notre Dame, where she helped the Fighting Irish to three 20-win seasons, three Big East title crowns and three NCAA Tournaments appearance.

A standout goalkeeper from 1991 to 1994 for FIU, Chin started all 67 games of her career and helped the Golden Panthers reach the NCAA quarterfinals in 1993. That year, FIU won its only Trans American Athletic Conference Championship and upset Duke in the first round of the tournament.

Nemtsanov earns All-American honors

Dennis Nemtsanov was named an honorable mention All-American on Saturday after finishing 11th in the platform competition at the NCAA Championships.

Nemtsanov, a freshman who transferred from Louisiana State, finished second among Big East divers behind Miami’s Miguel Velazquez, who placed 10th. He is the first Panther to earn the honor since Michael Pron received the same honor in 2000 in the 200-yard breaststroke.