ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Not exactly at her best when it counted most, Nastia Liukin was still good enough to win her second straight national gymnastics title Saturday night.

The 16-year-old overcame a big wobble on her closing beam routine to defeat Natasha Kelley, the defending junior champion and one of the few top gymnasts who actually professed to wanting to win this week.

To Liukin, winning wasn’t so important. She was more focused on perfecting her newly strengthened routines in time for World Championships in October.

Even so, she was good enough to remain on top among Americans. Her two-day score of 123.7 – .5 more than Kelley – actually marked her fourth straight national title, counting the two she won as a junior.

before graduating to the senior circuit.

Her main competition, reigning world champion Chellsie Memmel, finished fourth – a result she fully expected because she was watering down both her vault and bars routines to protect an injured shoulder and be ready for worlds.

Jana Bieger, a member of last year’s world championship team, finished third while Alicia Sacramone, the defending world champion on floor, finished fifth.

All are pointing to world championships and, of course, to the Olympics in 2008. Joining them soon on the team will be Shawn Johnson, the 14-year-old Iowa girl who romped to the junior title earlier in the day. As almost all gymnastics meets do, the seniors event came down to the final rotation – this time with Kelley on vault and Liukin on beam.

Under the new scoring system debuting this year, vaults are almost always the highest scoring events. Kelley went for a Yurchenko double-full and did it well, but bent down fairly significantly on her landing, which cost her execution points.

Her score of 14.85 forced Liukin to make a 15.1 to beat her, and Liukin can pretty much do that in her sleep.

Her most difficult sequence of the beam routine is a back handspring followed by two back layouts. It’s exquisitely difficult and she wobbled and warbled at the end, even touching the beam, but managing to somehow stay up on the 4-inch-wide slab.

Kelley may have thought she had it won right there, but Liukin scored 15.55 to hold on – a score some will say came as much for her reputation as the actual performance.

But she knew it wasn’t great, and everyone could tell as she walked off the podium with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. Still, the rest of the evening – the fabulous toe points on the bars, the graceful dancing on the floor, the solid landing on the vault – made up too good a package to deny.

“Everyone makes mistakes, but I still came out on top, so I’m happy,” Liukin said.

Pretty much everyone was, including Memmel, who made it out without further damage to her shoulder, and Bieger, who set herself up for another possible trip to worlds. She was on the team last year, but was shut out of the medals, mainly because she gave way to Memmel and Liukin, who finished first and second in the all-around.

AP-ES-08-19-06 2138EDT