Heading into its third rotation on floor, UCLA led Stanford 98.50-98.41 and looked like a team determined to hang on to its hard-earned advantage.
Unfortunately, the No. 1 Bruins couldn’t maintain their momentum through the final two rotations, falling to the No. 8 Cardinal 196.43-195.83 Sunday afternoon in their first loss of the season.
Freshman Lichelle Wong and junior Mizuki Sato suffered falls on the floor, putting the Bruins behind by 0.28 going into the fourth rotation. Strong beam performances by sophomore Vanessa Zamarripa, who scored a near perfect 9.98, and senior Anna Li, who won the individual all-around on Sunday with a score of 39.575, weren’t enough to overcome the deficit.
The Cardinal recorded scores of 9.90 or more on the final four routines of its last rotation, ending any hope of a comeback for the Bruins.
“Maybe we got a little relaxed and made a couple of mistakes,” Zamarripa said. “We were really confident, and we may have forgotten little details, but it is not something to look down upon. There were some really good moments too even if we made some mistakes.”
The competition against Stanford was UCLA’s second meet in three days. The Bruins scored 194.425 to defeat San Jose State (191.950) and California (190.375) in a tri-meet at Berkeley on Friday.
Several UCLA gymnasts performed in both meets, including freshman Monique De La Torre, who made her season debut on Friday, competing in the all-around and placing fifth. Coach Valorie Kondos Field said that fatigue did not affect the team because the lineups for each competition were significantly different.
“(On Friday), we competed our student athletes that don’t get to compete much, and it was great to have them come in,” she said. “We saved our big guns for (Sunday’s) meet.”
The Bruins split the individual events with the Cardinal, winning beam and vault while Stanford scored higher on bars and floor. UCLA’s score of 49.3 on beam was its best performance of the season.
“The score doesn’t reflect how we did,” Kondos Field said. “When you look at the whole meet, we actually grew a lot. We always talk about getting 1 percent better, and we did get 1 percent better.”
The Bruins were hampered by some unforeseen illness and injury, which may have affected their performance against Stanford. Sophomore Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, a crucial part of the Bruins’ lineup, competed in only one event against the Cardinal because of a strained muscle in her knee.
Junior Mizuki Sato, who competed on vault, floor and beam, was not feeling well before the meet. Sato fell on both beam and floor, which Kondos Field described as “very uncharacteristic.”
“Mizuki just had a bad night, not because she couldn’t wrap her head around (the meet), but because she wasn’t feeling well,” Kondos Field said. “We didn’t know how sick she was. If we would have known, we would have pulled her.”
After two weeks on the road, the Bruins have their second home meet against Arizona State next week.