The UCLA gymnastics team just keeps rolling.
Having won five straight, including Sunday’s season-best
performance against Stanford, No. 2 UCLA travels to Berkeley today
to take on Cal and Seattle Pacific in a triangular meet at 7:30
p.m. in Haas Pavilion.
Coach Valorie Kondos Field will take tonight’s meet
against two of the team’s more beatable opponents as an
opportunity to give some of the regular starters a chance to
rest.
“We’re looking to switch up our lineup for
(tonight’s) meet and give the girls that would normally help
us toward the end of the season a chance to compete,” Kondos
Field said. “We’re also looking to have back some of
the people that have been out with injuries.
“It’s good that we have a few meets in which we can
play with our lineup because it always recharges the
team.”
Cal (6-2), coming off of a loss at Arizona, is led by junior
My-Lan Dodd, who holds the school scoring record in the all-around,
vault, beam and floor.
The last time the Bruins (5-2) and Golden Bears met was last
year’s Bruin Classic, which saw UCLA record a season-high
198.275 in victory.
The rivalry between the schools has been one-sided to say the
least, as UCLA holds a 40-1 all-time record.
Seattle Pacific (3-3) has won its last three meets, including a
victory last week in which the team set season highs on both vault
and bars.
The Falcons are led by freshman Debra Huss, who is the current
USA Gymnastics leader in floor exercise scoring average.
UCLA and Seattle Pacific have met five times, with UCLA coming
out victorious in each meeting.
“We hope to build on what we did in our last meet,”
junior Kisha Auld said. “The team mood has been good, and
things seem to be coming along pretty easily.”
Although the Bruins have been winning rather easily in the past
month, Kondos Field believes the team will not be taking it easy
any time soon.
“There’s no sense of complacency at all,”
Kondos Field said. “I want to see us improve on our
performance quality.”