Maybe it was the weather. The June-in-January phenomenon
that epitomizes Southern California may have inspired the
University of Utah. The Utes left Salt Lake City and 26-degree
weather for Westwood and 74-degree sunshine to knock off defending
NCAA champion UCLA by a score of 197.350-196.375 Saturday
evening.
In hosting Utah, Pauley Pavilion saw two of the country’s
premier teams open the season.
“Without a doubt, undeniably, these two teams are the best
in the West,” head coach Valorie Kondos-Field said.
The meet would serve as notice to the rest of the nation that
2004 will be a year of stiff competition from these gymnastics
powerhouses west of the Mississippi.
UCLA showed some early first-meet jitters when two Bruins were
unable to find their feet on consecutive vaults, forcing UCLA to
count a fall in its team total.
“I think it’s a case of the first meet, just because
half of our team are freshmen, and they’ve never competed in
college or for our team before,” senior Jeanette Antolin
said. “Even in practice you could see it in some of them in
their faces and the way they’ve been practicing, they were
kind of nervous.”
The Bruins were given a late boost when Kate Richardson stuck a
big vault for a 9.975. Not to be outdone, Antolin followed
Richardson’s act with a huge vault of her own, earning
perfect marks from the judges for the first perfect 10 of the 2004
campaign.
“I think it was a great way to start off the season, a
great way to start off the meet,” Antolin said. “It
just gave everyone a little confidence going into the rest of the
meet.”
Moving to bars, the Bruins found themselves in the unfamiliar
position of playing catch-up, trailing the Utes 49.625-48.4.
The trend continued through the second event, when Utah hit all
of its routines en route to a whopping school record 49.625,
punctuated by Annabeth Eberle’s perfect 10. Across the
gymnasium, UCLA was led once again by Richardson and Antolin, who
recorded a 9.925 and a 9.95, respectively.
The two Bruins would continue to trade high scores, including a
perfect 10 from Richardson on the balance beam, eventually tying
for the all-around title with scores of 39.850, personal bests for
both gymnasts.
Despite these efforts and those of the rest of the Bruin squad,
the meet was mostly Utah from the get-go. The Utes competed well
throughout the night, breaking the 197 barrier in the team’s
first meet of the year. In winning, Utah avenged last year’s
loss to the Bruins that snapped their 170 meet home winning streak,
spanning 23 years.
“It crossed my mind and everyone else who was here last
year, they came to our house and beat us,” Eberle said.
“We wanted to beat them, but that was really not our main
focus. Our main focus was to compete with confidence, which we
did.”
Of special note on the night were the performances of freshman
Lori Winn and senior Kristen Maloney. Winn competed in all four
events of the all-around in her Bruin debut, recording 9.9s on both
floor and beam in the process. Maloney was competing for the first
time since 2001, having spent two years recovering from a serious
leg injury. In her first taste of competition, Maloney stuck
her vault for a 9.850, drawing warm applause from the crowd of
2,525.
“My prayer for this meet was Kristen Maloney,”
Kondos-Field said. “For her to be able to come back and not
just be successful but to walk out of here healthy is such a
testament to unwavering perseverance.”
Despite the loss, the Bruins remained upbeat about the overall
result, because several freshmen to competed for the first
time.
“We have one of those weird sports, where you just have to
build enough points to get to Regionals,” Kondos-Field said.
“And so winning is all about ego, to (be able to) say,
“˜We beat you.'”
“I think it was a good first meet,” Richardson
added. “There’s a lot of room to build.”