After Sunday’s gymnastics meet at the University of
Minnesota, throngs of little girls lined up to get autographs from
the gymnasts. The young fans, though, were not only waiting
for autographs from their hometown heroes.Â
They were also waiting for the Bruins, who had readily agreed to
sit down alongside the Minnesota team for an autograph session
following the competition.Â
Besides leaving its mark on T-shirts and posters, the Bruins
left their mark on the Golden Gophers in a 197.55 to 195.325
performance.Â
There were plenty of aspects of Sunday’s meet that the
Bruins could have used as excuses had they faltered. However,
in keeping the same lineup on Sunday as she did against Georgia
last Monday, coach Valorie Kondos Field received a similar
performance to Monday’s high marks.Â
“It was important for us to go and put in the same lineup
we put in at Georgia, and one reason for that was to let them
improve on their performances from Monday,” Kondos Field
said. “It was important to prove to ourselves and everyone
else that Georgia wasn’t a fluke.”
One thing that stayed the same was the performances of some of
UCLA’s top gymnasts ““ including Kate Richardson,
Jeanette Antolin and Kristen Maloney.Â
Following Maloney’s 9.925 on the vault, Richardson and
Antolin received back-to-back perfect 10s in the same event,
receiving a warm ovation from the crowd.
“No (scoring a perfect 10), doesn’t mean as much to
us as the team score, but it’s fun,” Richardson
said.
Maloney competed in every event except floor, recording a 9.9 on
beam and a 9.850 on bars in addition to her high vault
score.Â
“I didn’t warm up so well, so it felt really good to
go in and be able to pull it out for the team,” Maloney said.
“We were really excited to come here and compete, but we were
looking for a really good score so we could bring up our average
and our standing.”
The Bruins entered the meet ranked No. 10 in the nation. Their
standing should increase dramatically after strong performances at
both Georgia and Minnesota.Â