AUBURN, Ala. “”mdash; The bitter taste of Friday night’s
fourth-place finish still lingering in her mouth, senior Kristen
Maloney took to the floor for one last time in search of
redemption.
She found it on the balance beam and vault.
Maloney was joined by teammates Kate Richardson and Tasha
Schwikert for the NCAA Individual Event Championships on Saturday
night in Auburn, an opportunity for three of the most talented
Bruin gymnasts to leave behind their team concerns and jump a
little higher, take a few chances and add that extra degree of
difficulty while matching their skills against the best in the
nation.
And as Maloney knows from experience, some gymnasts are better
than others.
Maloney won two of the four NCAA championship titles, defeating
a field of six other competitors considered specialists on beam
with a score of 9.9375 and eight other vault specialists with
another 9.9375.
“Competing individually is fun because all of the pressure
is off,” Maloney said. “I get to relax and have fun
while showcasing things I wouldn’t try on a team
night.”
Maloney certainly gave the crowd something to remember her by,
accomplishing two extremely rare feats in the gymnastics world,
becoming just the second collegiate gymnast to stick a Yurchenko
double-full on vault and the only woman in the history of NCAA
gymnastics to stick a double layout full-out on the floor exercise,
an event she was unable to win partially because of an out of
bounds deduction.
“She was not going to leave with any regrets,” UCLA
coach Valorie Kondos Field said. “She brought out all of her
hardest skills tonight and nailed them.”
But even after dazzling the crowd with her swan song, Maloney
couldn’t help but think back on the night before.
“I’ve thought a lot about not winning (the team
championship),” Maloney said. “I decided it
wasn’t our time as a team, but I can’t complain because
I’ve already won three. I hope every team gets to feel that
feeling.
“It’s great to end my career with a vault and beam
title, but a team championship would have been that extra icing on
the cake.”
Schwikert agreed with her teammate.
“The team competition is more important, because that is
what we’re here for,” she said. “Everything else
is just extra.”
Schwikert also fared well in the individual portion, coming away
with a third-place tie with Utah’s Ashley Postell at 9.8875
on the uneven bars. The all-around winner from Thursday
night’s qualifier session also tied for fifth place on the
balance beam, but was forced to pull out of the floor exercise due
to illness.
“I was laying on the bed last night looking like I was
going to die,” Schwikert said on Saturday. “I
can’t really breathe but I decided to do something and not
totally give up. I felt pretty sluggish after bars so (the coaches
and I) decided not to go after floor.”
Also competing for UCLA was 2003 NCAA bars and beam champion
Kate Richardson, who went into her floor routine knowing that she
needed to score 10.0 just to tie North Carolina’s Courtney
Bumpers.
Richardson was nearly flawless through three-fourths of her
routine until she stumbled on a landing during her third pass.
“I went out to attack every tenth,” Richardson said.
“I let it go in the last part and just ran out of
gas.”