Away from the comfortable atmosphere of Pauley Pavilion, the UCLA gymnastics team sometimes has trouble landing on its feet.
Heading into tonight’s away competition against No. 18 Arizona (2-2, 2-1 Pac-10), the Bruins have spent the last couple of days working on sticking solid landings, especially on beam.
Coach Valorie Kondos Field believes that it was several landing deductions in last week’s meet that prevented No. 6 UCLA (5-1, 3-1) from surpassing its season best score of 196.600.
“If you just take away all the landing deductions that we had on Sunday and still count the fall that we had on beam, we would have scored well above a 197,” she said.
Redshirt junior Brittani McCullough agreed with her coach’s emphasis on sticking landings, adding that minor mistakes often lead to unnecessary deductions for the Bruins.
“We need to concentrate on little things like pointed toes or sticking landing on bars. Sticking landings is a very big deal for us,” McCullough said. “We just have to pay attention to detail to get better.”
McCullough, who broke her season record on vault last Sunday with a 9.925, stuck her routine without any hops, step-backs or arm movements. Her vault performance is an example of the kind of landings the Bruins are striving to achieve with every routine.
“I can’t ever remember Brittani sticking a vault like that,” Kondos Field said. “It was a soft (landing). She is starting to find her feet and her landing. She has had so many Achilles’ and ankle issues that she has always been tender with her landings, but now she is beginning to trust herself.”
UCLA’s away team totals have been significantly less than their two home meet scores. On the road, the Bruins average 195.458 per meet compared to 196.575 per meet at Pauley. Kondos Field hopes to use the competition against Arizona to boost the low away scores but says the nature of gymnastics judging makes it difficult to predict team totals, especially on the road.
“From meet to meet the scoring is so subjective,” she said. “You can have a great vault go 9.750, and it just deflates you. It takes the air out of your sails, and we can’t let that happen.”
Hoping to contribute high individual scores against Arizona is freshman Monique De La Torre, who was unable to compete last week after a sudden injury. She was scheduled in the all-around against Arizona State but was forced to withdraw after hitting her head on a mat during release warm-ups on uneven bars.
“It’s disappointing that I didn’t get to go out and compete last weekend, but there is always going to be other meets,” said De La Torre, who returns to her home state for Friday’s competition. “I’m ready to go out there and show people how good of a competitor I really am. I want to show people what this sport is all about.”
Although Arizona won its last two meets, proving to be tough competition, Kondos Field is more focused on achieving the goals UCLA has set for itself.
“This is a big meet for us,” she said. “We’re (ranked) six, but we need to get back in the top three. There are a lot of things we need to accomplish, and this meet is very important to be able to accomplish them.”