The energy in Pauley Pavilion at the UCLA gymnastics meet Sunday came to a head during the Bruins’ floor routines. Coach Valorie Kondos Field emphasized the entertainment element of her team’s performance in the week leading up to the meet and it showed.
No. 6 UCLA scored high on floor exercise and the balance beam, edging out No. 3 Alabama by two-tenths of a point. The Bruins’ final score of 196.550 narrowly defeated the Crimson Tide at 196.300.
Junior Hallie Mossett and redshirt senior Sadiqua Bynum both received scores of 9.950 for their floor routines and were accompanied by deafening cheers while the entire student section clapped in time with their tracks. Mossett received a perfect 10 from one of the judges.
“Haven’t done that before,” Mossett said. “Definite highlight of my day.”
Mossett wasn’t the only one with a career first on Sunday. Redshirt junior Christine Peng-Peng Lee performed a hands-free beam routine after a thumb injury forced her to compete without the use of her hands, sometimes jokingly referred to as a “bluetooth” routine.
Despite her restrictive injury, Lee received near-perfect scores of 9.95 from both judges.
“Normally (I) don’t focus on the score so much – more on how I felt up there and I felt great, so I had a really good time,” Lee said.
Kondos Field noted that UCLA’s beam performances overall were exceptionally strong.
“I have to say that beam performance … that was like a national championship beam rotation,” Kondos Field said.
One of the six performances that contributed to that rotation belonged to freshman Katelyn Ohashi, who fell on the bars earlier in the day. Ohashi recollected from her misstep to execute her beam routine, which had a high difficulty level due to a double-pike dismount, for a score of 9.8.
“She came back and just nailed it,” Kondos Field said. “(Other people) shut down. They feel so badly they fell, that’s all they think about – they just give the routine away.”
Although gymnastics is not a sport in which athletes directly interact with each other, the Bruins thrived off the competitive environment surrounding the nation’s No. 3 team.
“(An opponent) pumps me up more to do well – I love performing in front of a crowd,” Mossett said. “Having someone to compete against … gives me a little bit of an adrenaline rush. I want to win.”