AUBURN, Ala. “”mdash; Having completed two blazing rotations that
left them .175 points ahead of second-place Georgia, a third
consecutive NCAA Championship seemed just a hop, skip and a jump
away for the UCLA gymnastics team.
But after two falls and a bout of unsteadiness in their final
two rotations, the Bruins’ dream of a three-peat dissipated
as UCLA slipped to fourth behind the champion Georgia Gym Dogs,
Alabama and Utah in front of a thunderous crowd of 6,067 at
Beard-Eaves Coliseum.
Owning a 98.950 score after a remarkable floor performance and
vault rotation, the first-place Bruins spent their third rotation
bye in the locker room, unaware of Georgia’s march across the
floor that resulted in a 49.525. It left them just .175 points
behind UCLA.
“We felt great,” UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field
said. “We knew we were halfway done but at the same time that
the meet was a long way from over.”
In what became the turning point of the meet for UCLA, the
Bruins returned in the fourth rotation on bars in hopes of
maintaining their slight lead over the advancing field as
second-place Georgia took to vault.
While sophomores Ashley Peckett, Courtney Walker and Kristen
Maloney all improved on their previous night’s efforts, the
team’s collective 49.275 dropped the Bruins .225 behind
Georgia.
The first glitch for the Bruins on bars came on freshman Lindsey
Vanden Eykel’s fall. While the miscue was not reflected in
the final score, it lost her the opportunity to improve upon the
twin 9.8s turned in by Peckett and Walker.
Things only got worse for UCLA during the subsequent beam
rotation. Senior Christie Tedmon fell for the third time in two
days, leaving the remaining five gymnasts with little room for
error.
It was from that point forward that any hope for a first-place
finish seemed to have disappeared. Jordan Schwikert nearly fell and
registered only a 9.60, but the Bruins were forced to take that
score and Vanden Eykel’s 9.725.
The Bruins were left with a final total of 197.150, which was
.675 behind Georgia.
“There was absolutely no room for error,” Kondos
Field said. “Georgia was on a roll from the get-go and all
the coaches knew that if Georgia hit their beam rotation,
we’d be done.”
Also passing UCLA in the final rotation were Alabama, who
shocked the home crowd by sprinting into second place with the two
highest rotation scores of the night, and Utah, which held third
place throughout the entire competition.
After dropping three positions in the second half of the meet,
the Bruins were understandably disappointed.
“They are upset, but that’s because they are looking
at the score, not the effort and heart they showed out
there,” Kondos Field said. “They’re not focusing
on the hundreds of good things that happened tonight, but the three
or four bad things that happened instead.”
The bright spots came early and often for UCLA.
The first rotation featured six strong floor routines, five of
which either matched or topped the score they received the previous
night. The floor exercise was highlighted by Maloney’s 10.0
and Walker’s 9.825.
Tasha Schwikert was the only Bruin unable to improve upon her
floor score from Thursday’s session, largely because of an
illness she contracted from teammates which greatly hindered her
ability to breathe.
“Tasha didn’t have it after the first routine on
floor,” Kondos Field said. “We all knew she was sick,
but the crowd didn’t. I told her I didn’t want everyone
else to think that she had spent everything on the first night
(while winning the all-around competition) and had nothing left,
because that wasn’t the case.”
UCLA carried over its first-rotation success into vault, where
it found itself just .15 points off of last season’s
championship score after two events.
Jordan Schwikert was the star of the rotation, leading her team
with a 9.925, a dramatic .275 improvement over her performance on
Thursday at the preliminaries.
But the success on floor exercise and vault were simply not
enough to carry UCLA to a third straight title.
“We put everything out there on the table,” Tasha
Schwikert said.
“There are no excuses and no regrets. We did absolutely
everything we could do.”
And even though the finish to the season failed to reflect the
dominance they enjoyed throughout the year, the 2005 gymnastics
season will still be one for the Bruins to remember.
“This season has been one growth spurt after
another,” Kondos Field said. “A lot of life lessons
have been learned. I could write a book about all the great things
that happened this season.”