Tuesday, April 7, 1998
Bruins earn NCAA trip
REGIONALS: After Umeh’s injury, team pulls together from behind
to take second place at Regionals
By Christie DeBeau
Daily Bruin Contributor
The UCLA women’s gymnastics team, the 1997 NCAA defending
champions, will have a chance to keep its crown for a second year
after earning a qualifying score of 195.1 at the NCAA West Regional
competition on April 4th in Seattle, Wash.
The Bruins placed second in the meet after the University of
Washington, who scored a 196.15. Stanford placed third with a
194.625, followed by Boise State (193.925), Oregon State (193.25),
University of California, Berkeley (190.6) and University of
California,Davis (187.875).
The UCLA women’s gymnastics team began the first half of the
1998 season with a streak of victories, but the team’s wins waned
in the second half. At the Bruins’ last meet of the regular season,
the Pacific-10 Championships, the Bruins placed fourth amongst
seven teams. However, the pattern reversed itself at Regionals
where the Bruins started off slow but ended strong — just strong
enough to earn them a berth in the NCAA National Championships.
The Bruins began the evening on bars, where top all-arounder
Stella Umeh’s performance ended in disaster when her feet hit the
bar on her fly away dismount, causing her to fall to the mat and
land on her head. Senior Umeh’s neck injury kept her out for the
next two events.
After this shaky start, the team moved to beam where things
looked better for the Bruins when freshman Alexis Norman, Umeh’s
replacement, scored a career high with a 9.725. Sophomore Lena
Degteva led UCLA on this event with a 9.8, and also completed the
meet with a third place title in all-around competition, scoring a
39.275.
On floor exercise, the Bruins went in with only five competitors
instead of the allowed six, making every gymnast’s score count.
Once again UCLA ran into some trouble, receiving two out of bounds
deductions.
As a result of a wobbly start, the team had to come up big on
vault. They entered this rotation trailing Boise State and the
University of Arizona, who the Bruins needed to beat in order to
gain the final 12th slot for Nationals. It was at the vault
rotation that the Bruins came together and scored the third best
vault score in school history.
Entering the last rotation, Stanford was in first place but were
not able to deliver a strong performance on their last event–beam.
This gave the Bruins a window of opportunity. Although Stanford
placed third in the meet, their score was not high enough to secure
a position in the NCAA Nationals.
Senior walk-on Andrea Fong was the first to compete for the
Bruins and hit a season high of 9.775. Freshman Mohini Bhardwaj
scored a 9.8 on her first time vaulting since January. Umeh had
recovered for this event, and hit a 9.9 to tie with junior Kiralee
Hayashi for third place on vault. Degteva also came through for her
team with a 9.925, earning second place.
However, despite the high scores from all five of these
gymnasts, UCLA still needed a 9.825 or higher from its last
competitor, sophomore Heidi Moneymaker. On her first vault, she
scored a 9.775, but on her second vault, Moneymaker received a
9.875 to give UCLA the opportunity to compete at Nationals.
"We are so excited, not so much because we qualified, but
because we came together as a team for the first time this season,"
UCLA head coach Valorie Kondos said. "They knew they had to score
out of their minds on vault, and they did the absolute best they
could do."
Also accompanying UCLA at the NCAA National Competition will be
Georgia, Alabama, Penn State, Utah, Florida, Michigan, BYU, LSU,
North Carolina State and Arizona State.