By Adam Karon
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
When the rest of the student population is busy studying for
finals, the UCLA gymnastics team will be in Alabama competing for a
No. 1 seed in the West Regional. As other students begin their
Spring Break in exotic locations like Cancun and Cozumel, the
Bruins will be working toward a Pac-10 championship. Who ever said
athletes have it easy?
This Saturday the gymnasts travel to compete against the No. 2
Alabama team. They are looking to regain the momentum of a week ago
when the team set a school record 198.35 at the Bruin invitational.
Even more important, UCLA hopes to tally a high away score,
increasing its ranking enough to secure that coveted No. 1 seed
that would keep them on the West Coast for the first round of the
NCAA Tournament.
“It shouldn’t be hard to regain momentum in front of
15,000 screaming Alabama fans,” UCLA head coach Valorie
Kondos Field said.
The meet in Tuscaloosa closes out the regular season for the
Bruins.
Immediately after finals week the team heads north to Stanford
for the Pac-10 Championships. Last year the Cardinal narrowly beat
UCLA for the conference title.
“It’s a memory, something to learn from,”
senior Valerie Velasco said of last year’s defeat. “We
just have to fight for every move and do what we can.”
The Bruins are still banged up and will rest standouts Jamie
Dantzscher and Onnie Willis as much as possible against
Alabama.
Though the Pac-10 title is a team goal, the Bruins proved last
year that they could be national champions without winning their
conference.
The next two weeks UCLA begins its quest in earnest to win both
championships, something it did during the 1999-2000 campaign.