April 23, 2016

DAVIS, Calif. -- UC Davis women's gymnastics issued its annual awards, announced the new team captains for the upcoming season, and bid a tearful farewell to a member of its coaching staff during the 2016 season banquet held in the Bruce Edwards Club Room at Aggie Stadium Saturday.

Junior Katy Nogaki, sophomore Alexis Brown, sophomore Miranda Holder and freshman Yasmine Yektaparast each garnered the team's Outstanding Contribution awards, given in lieu of the more traditional Most Valuable or Most Inspirational honors. This is the second straight for Nogaki and Brown, and the first for Holder and Yektaparast.

The annual team banquet also provides the unveiling of the team captains, as voted by team members. The 2017 team will feature three for the first time in John Lavallee's Aggie tenure, which reached its 10th season this year. Nogaki, Yonni Michovska and Emma Hicks were chosen to replace outgoing captains Taylor Baron and Stephanie Stamates. All three will be seniors in 2017. The voting is done independently of the coaching staff, and tabulated by Amie Smith, the executive assistant to the athletics director.

Assistant coach Annie DiLuzio gives a tearful goodbye to sophomore Alexis Brown during Saturday's 2017 season banquet. (Mark Honbo, Athletics Communications)

Finally, Lavallee announced for the second straight year the departure of an assistant coach. Annie DiLuzio, who joined the staff last July, is moving to North Carolina at the end of the month, thus vacating her post. The former U.S. National Team member had replaced Tamara Ross, who announced her retirement at the same event exactly one year ago. As interim athletics director Teresa Gould noted, the team's emotional response to the news provides a genuine statement to the relationship DiLuzio had forged with her athletes during her brief time with the Aggie program.

UC Davis women's gymnastics finished 42nd in the nation with a regional-qualifying score of 195.045. The Aggies also placed second at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championships, boasted 13 all-conference honorees, and qualified three individual at-large competitors to the NCAA Salt Lake City Regional earlier in April.