Five “seniors” said an emotional farewell to Stegeman Coliseum Saturday night, as the top-ranked Gym Dogs dispatched Michigan to close out their regular season.

Georgia’s 197.400-195.775 win over the Wolverines completed a perfect 12-0 regular season, and junior Grace Taylor scored her second career 10. But the focus was on Gym Dogs coach Suzanne Yoculan, who will retire after the season, and her four senior gymnasts Saturday, as they made their final competitive appearances in Athens.

“I feel like this program is a part of me for sure, and that part’s always going to be here, and I’m always going to have a place here in this arena,” said Yoculan, in her 26th and final season as the coach of Georgia gymnastics.

The Gym Dogs started off strong, and were halfway to their second 198 of the season with a 99.0 at the midpoint of the meet. They appeared they might be wavering slightly after senior Paige Burns had a few significant wobbles on beam and junior Courtney McCool fell off, but Taylor countered on the very next routine with her first career 10 on beam.

Senior Courtney Kupets, one of the most decorated collegiate gymnasts of all-time, took the all-around title for the 10th time in 11 meets this season with a 39.70 in her final showing in Athens.

“I’ve kind of thought about it for four years now,” Kupets said. “When it gets to senior night every year, you kind of think, that’s going to be me in three years, that’s going to be me in two years, that’s going to be me in a year.”

Her classmate Tiffany Tolnay, a 12-time All-American in her own right, finished with a 39.275 on the all-around. She said she was OK for most of the meet but admitted she let the emotion of her last time in Athens get to her when the fathers of the four seniors came down to the Coliseum sidelines for Georgia’s final rotation on floor.

“It was just a great night, I got to embrace everything,” an emotional Tolnay said. “I got to enjoy my beam music, ‘The Time of Your Life.’ This has really been the time of my life, the journey, the process of that little girl who fell in love with gymnastics when she was 3 years old.”

“It was really exciting to see them continue to be the senior class we know and love, steady, strong and just incredible,” Taylor said. “They didn’t let emotion get in the way, they were 100 percent gunning for a high score, and gunning to make our team continue to be the best in the nation. They were like, emotion aside, we’re going to rock just like we always do.”

Once the meet started, Yoculan and most of the gymnasts said it was business as usual, as they charted their third-highest score of the season – it was during the pre-meet meeting and other rituals when emotions ran high.

“Definitely before the competition was the most emotional time for me, just walking around, thinking about it being the last time in the Coliseum, and just reminiscing about the 200 fans [at her first meet as a coach in 1983) and the journey," she said. "Life's about opportunities and chances and I came down here not having any idea what I was getting into and just took a chance ... It's like you blink your eyes and 26 years go by."

Said Kupets, jokingly: "[Yoculan]‘s definitely more emotional underneath. She did a really good job though throughout the whole meet. We kind of made her stay on task a little bit with our errors, but we did it on purpose just so she would stay involved in the meet.”

Yoculan has led the Gym Dogs to nine NCAA championships and 16 SEC titles during her reign, has the gymnastics practice facility named after her and has brought a lot of other hardware to Athens. She said what she will savor, however, is the people she’s grown to know, mentored, and learned from.

“It’s really true that you should live life to the fullest, because it does go by so fast,” she said. “Most of my memories are not about gymnastics, that’s the interesting thing. It’s not about the trophies, it’s all the other things that the girls do, and the funny stories, and the M&Ms in the locker room, and all the other things that we share.”

The Gym Dogs’ 12-0 mark is their first perfect regular season since 2006, and their seventh since 1992. Their quest for a record 10th national championship, and fifth straight, officially begins Saturday with the SEC championships in Nashville. But Yoculan said her time in the spotlight has already ended.

“I feel like this is the end of the Suzanne Yoculan era, right now, tonight,” she said. “Now it’s our team and our coaches and our program moving forward trying to win a 10th national title.”