Friday, April 12, 1996
By Esther Hui
Daily Bruin Staff
High noon is just around the corner for a couple of women’s
gymnastics teams.
Saturday at 6 p.m. in Pauley Pavilion, it’s the 1996 Pacific 10
champion and top-seeded Oregon State vs. West Regional defending
champion and second-seeded UCLA for the NCAA West Regional
championship and an automatic bid to nationals.
The No. 10 Bruins and the No. 6 Beavers have built up quite a
healthy rivalry this year. UCLA beat Oregon State in February in
the Beavers’ first dual-meet loss at home in years, and the Beavers
responded with an upset at Pac-10s, stealing the crown the Bruins
had easily won the year before.
But exactly how much are the teams actually thinking about each
other?
"Zero," Oregon State head coach Jim Turpin said. "Our goal is
not to beat UCLA, our goal is to qualify for nationals. We want to
hit 24 for 24 (routines), and let the chips fall where they may.
I’d certainly like to win, and spare that little amount of time of
knowing whether or not we were going, but to a certain extent, the
rest of it is out of our hands."
Said UCLA’s Leah Homma: "We know (Oregon State) will be
competing the same time as us, but it’s not a matter of us
competing against them. We just have to do our best, it’ll mostly
be against ourselves."
For the Bruins, this rather existential approach to competition
has been a hard lesson learned this season. In the toughest
pressure competitions, the Bruins seemed to fold, such as in losses
to Arizona in January and at the Pac-10s. Their best performances
came in what they perceived as more relaxed situations, such as
their season-high set against BYU (195.725) in March.
Most recently, the Bruins lost one of their top all-arounders in
Stella Umeh, who will be out of tomorrow’s meet with a broken bone
in her right foot and an inner-ear infection. This has given the
team even more of a sense of personal responsibility.
"I really don’t think (Stella’s injury) should affect that team
that much score-wise," UCLA head coach Valorie Kondos said. "We had
our best score of the year at BYU and Stella had two falls on beam
and didn’t compete on floor. If we don’t hit, Stella getting
perfect 10s won’t save us.
"Emotionally, any time you have adversity it elevates everyone
to another level. It’s definitely a spark, it will bring out the
very best of these athletes."
The winner of each of the five regions will receive an automatic
bid to the National Championships, with the next highest seven
scores in the national also advancing. Also competing in the West
Region is Stanford, which is ranked 19th in the country and has
scored a 195 this year.
If the second place team scores well relative to other regions,
it will most likely be given one of the bids, but if the West
Region is a low-scoring region, the second-place team may not
qualify, which sets up the importance of a win.
JUSTIN WARREN/Daily Bruin
Leah Homma leads the Bruins into the NCAA West Regionals.