With a team title in hand, it was on to personal business for
the UCLA gymnasts.
On Saturday night, Bruin seniors Jamie Dantzscher, Jeanette
Antolin, Yvonne Tousek, Kristen Maloney, and sophomore Kate
Richardson competed in the NCAA Championship individual event
finals.
All five gymnasts qualified for the individual finals after
scoring in the top four in a given event during their Thursday
preliminary meet.
Richardson started the night on vault after scoring a meet-high
9.95 on the apparatus Thursday.
Unlike team competition, individual vault finalists perform two
vaults and the final score is an average of the two.
Richardson stuck her first vault for an impressive 9.95, but
faltered in her second attempt and ended up sitting down on her
landing, which gave her a 9.225 and a 9.5875 overall vault
score.
Eight vaulters later, Alabama’s Ashley Miles walked away
with the individual title by scoring a 9.9438. UCLA’s
Richardson finished ninth.
Tousek was the next UCLA competitor to perform, as she took to
the beam.
Tousek’s beam performance was solid enough to earn her a
9.875 score, as she finished .075 lower than Arizona State’s
Ashley Kelly, en route to a fifth-place finish for the Bruin.
Four UCLA gymnasts performed on the third event, the uneven
bars.
Dantzscher, last year’s uneven bar individual champion,
was the first to compete in the field of thirteen.
Although Dantzscher started well, she took an extra swing on the
high bar, leading to a score of 9.375 and a 12th place finish.
Richardson followed her teammate, and avenged her fall on vault
by scoring a 9.9, good enough for third place.
“I wanted to go out and hit all my events,”
Richardson said.
“I didn’t on vault, so I wanted to do a good job on
bars to make up for it.”
Next up on bars was UCLA’s Maloney, who had a
near-flawless performance and received a 9.9375, finishing in
second place overall ““ .0375 behind Michigan’s Elise
Ray.
“(It was) a really good two days,” Maloney said.
“It really hasn’t sunk in yet, but it will in a few
days.”
The last Bruin on bars was Antolin, who garnered a 9.8875 for
her effort and finished behind teammates Maloney and Richardson for
fourth place.
The floor exercise was the last event of the night, where
Antolin was the lone Bruin to compete.
Following a strong performance, Antolin received a 9.9,
finishing tied for third place with Utah’s Melissa Vituj and
.0375 behind Alabama’s Miles and North Carolina’s
Courtney Bumpers, who shared the floor title.
Saturday night’s meet marked the third and final
consecutive night of competition for the five UCLA gymnasts.
“(It was) hard, we’re all exhausted,”
Richardson said. “You have so much adrenaline that you get
drained mentally emotionally, and physically.”