The No. 7 UCLA women’s gymnastics team simultaneously added to its trophy case and boosted its confidence at the perfect time, winning its 14th Pac-10 title March 21 in Stanford.
Three days later, the team received more good news.
All eight of the gymnasts who competed at the Pac-10 Championships were named to the 2009 Pac-10 All-Conference team.
That team of eight outscored six opponents at the championships, including No. 8 Oregon State (196.550) and No. 3 Stanford (196.525), with a final score of 196.725 en route to the win.
“We coaches have felt all season that we’ve been on track,” coach Valorie Kondos Field said. “We would have liked to show more signs of brilliance all along but we’re still on track. We knew that we were going to come in and that we were going to compete hard, but we still have room to improve.”
In previous meets, UCLA has struggled on beam with a number of costly falls. At the championships the beam was the final event, and the Bruins excelled under pressure.
UCLA notched its season-high beam score with a 49.325. Freshman Vanessa Zamarripa obtained her all-time score with a 9.9, tying with freshman Elysse Hopfner-Hibbs.
“It has really been a confidence booster,” Zamarripa said. “I feel that we are capable of hitting every event four for four. The energy we have as a team is just going to keep building until we go to nationals. We all came together and cheered everyone on and put a lot of trust and confidence into one another. We knew as soon as we got to beam that we were going to hit.”
Since the beginning of the season, it has been a priority for the squad to hit four solid events. Fortunately for the Bruins, they managed to score at least a 49.00 in all four rotations. Their highest score ironically came in during beam.
“We knew it was in our hands if we did everything that we do in practice,” senior Ariana Berlin said. “Everyone transformed into the gymnasts that we’ve always been and competed that way. Now we just have to carry this on over.”
The Bruins have a two-week gap between the Pac-10 Championship and the NCAA Regionals. The Bruins will then travel to Iowa City to meet their regional competitors who will be determined in the following weeks.
Kondos Field believes there is plenty of time to get the squad fully prepared for what is to come.
“We’re looking forward to a great week and a half of training and cleaning up the details,” Kondos Field said. “This team is really fun to coach, and today was no different. Even though they make mistakes they listen to every single one of their coaches, and it’s an honor to be able to coach them.”