UCLA gymnastics advances to NCAA finals

Barring an uncharacteristic meltdown in the last rotation of Saturday’s NCAA regional, No. 5 Utah had already all but locked up both first place and the first of two available bids for NCAA championships in two weeks.

That left No. 8 UCLA and No. 17 Arkansas, separated by less than a third of a point going into their final routines, fighting over who would keep the 2014 season alive for more than one more rotation – and Arkansas had the home crowd.

“The home team, I’ve always said they’re the most dangerous team because they have that 12th-man advantage,” said coach Valorie Kondos Field.

And though the Bruins held the lead at the time, they were on one of their most inconsistent events, beam, while Arkansas was on floor – an event Kondos Field said generally earns higher scores.

“Once Hallie (Mosset) started us off on beam and hit, I knew that we would do well,” Kondos Field said. “I just didn’t know if our scores would hold up compared to Arkansas.”

And although the Razorbacks did outscore the Bruins in the final rotation, it wasn’t enough, as UCLA held on to take second place over Arkansas, 196.6 to 196.375, and progress to NCAA finals April 18-20 in Birmingham, Ala.

UCLA began the meet scoring a season-high on floor to take an initial lead over both Arkansas and Utah. From there, the three top-25 teams tussled for the top two spots as the other three teams in the regional – No. 24 Arizona State, UC Davis and Utah State – quickly fell behind.

To add to the Bruins’ successes, redshirt junior Samantha Peszek won the all-around competition for the third time this year – although she didn’t find that out until after the meet.

“It’s a team competition so you never know where you’re standing individually throughout the whole competition,” Peszek said. “You just do the best that you can on each event and first and foremost hope that it works out for your team and secondly see how you do individually.”

For Peszek, focus paid off in both aspects of the competition, as her 9.95 on beam helped secure both her all-around win and the Bruins’ eighth consecutive trip to NCAA finals.

And though Peszek scored the highest on beam, her strong performance was one of many on the UCLA’s final rotation that kept the team ahead of Arkansas.

Freshman Hallie Mosset shook off an illness and an earlier fall on bars to lead the Bruins off, sophomore Danusia Francis once again pulled off her extremely difficult dismount – albeit with a hop – and strong performances from sophomore Sophina DeJesus and senior Olivia Courtney meant that the Bruins had secured second before their final routine, redshirt sophomore Ellette Craddock’s, had begun.

The success of this meet came after the team suffered a major disappointment at Pac-12 Championships two weeks prior which, according to Courtney, made this week’s victory that much more motivating as UCLA prepares for NCAA finals.

“Coming off a low from Pac-12s, going in and knowing that we have another meet and we made it to nationals, everybody is really excited now,” Courtney said. “Especially over the next few weeks, we’re going in wanting to kill and finish what we started.”