Just hours before the Pac-10 Championships began, a few of the
UCLA gymnasts looked around their hotel room with puzzled
expressions, wondering where their coaches were.
A creased letter on the table delivered the following
message.
This is your meet. This is your destiny. Compete with pride.
With the absence of the coaches from that meeting came an
invitation for the gymnasts to take control over their own team, an
invitation they gladly accepted.
They proceeded to take control over the rest of the conference
with a wire-to-wire victory at Berkeley last week, defeating
second-place Arizona by over a full point while also overpowering
the rest of the field that included Oregon State, Stanford,
Washington, Arizona State, and host Cal.
UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field is convinced that the letter she
and assistant coaches Chris Waller and Marshall Nelson left for the
team helped lead UCLA to victory.
“The most important point of the meet came before we even
left the hotel,” Kondos Field said. “We empowered them
to take control, and they did it.”
The Bruins made it look easy from that point on.
UCLA posted a 49.3 on vault to take the lead after the first
rotation, a lead they would hold for the remainder of the meet.
Tasha Schwikert and Kristen Maloney led the charge on vault,
scoring a 9.9 and 9.925, respectively. The pair only got hotter as
the meet went on.
As the Bruins moved to bars in the third rotation after a second
rotation bye that saw Oregon State creep within .05 of first place,
Schwikert struck with a perfect 10. It was her second such score of
the season on bars and her fourth 10.0 overall, helping to distance
Oregon State from the lead by more than a full point.
Kondos Field encouraged her team to go for the kill in the
fourth rotation.
“When we got to beam, I said to Chris (Waller),
“˜Let’s take a risk,'” said Kondos Field.
“We had Jordan (Schwikert) go first on the beam, and I told
her it was time to make it happen and that she had to pull away
now. It was so exciting to see her eyes light up. I did the same
thing with Tasha and Kate (Richardson) and their eyes lit up
too.”
The strategy seemed to work with the Bruins posting three 9.9+
scores on the rotation, which was enough to make Oregon
State’s fifth rotation attempt to take the lead an
unsuccessful one.
After closing out the victory on the floor exercise, Maloney was
given Pac-10 Gymnast of the Year honors, having been the No. 1
ranked gymnast in the nation for 10 weeks in a row. Tasha Schwikert
was awarded Pac-10 Freshman of the Year.
“Tasha and Maloney go against each other every week
knowing that their biggest competition is their own
teammate,” Kondos Field said. “They have helped one
another to such great seasons.”