UCLA gymnastics lands fifth-place finish at NCAA Team Finals

FORT WORTH, Texas — No. 8 UCLA gymnastics put together a weekend of solid, complete meets, hitting 48 of 48 events and improving their semifinal scores on three events.

But UCLA’s consistency could not stand up to No. 1 Oklahoma’s near-perfect night as the Sooners ended No. 4 Florida’s bid for a fourth-straight crown and became just the sixth program to win multiple NCAA championships behind a 197.6750 score.

No. 2 Louisiana State recovered from an early fall on uneven bars to finish second. The Tigers had a meet-high rotation score of 49.5250 on vault in their final event to push themselves past Southeastern Conference rivals No. 3 Alabama and Florida who finished the meet in third and fourth place, respectively.

No. 6 Georgia finished in sixth place just behind UCLA’s final score of 196.825.

The Bruins started their last meet of the season on their signature event – floor exercise.

All three seniors performed, with Sophina DeJesus thrilling the crowd with her modern dance routine and Bond girl Danusia Francis shooting teammates in the corral areas – DeJesus and Francis tallied a 9.850 and 9.8625, respectively. Redshirt senior and former walk-on Sadiqua Bynum, who earned second-team All-America honors on floor, led the way with a team-high 9.8625 after junior Angi Cipra hopped out of bounds on her last tumbling pass.

Following the first rotation, UCLA was just .025 out of first place behind Oklahoma, which ended vault with its lowest rotation score of the night – 49.225 – and .0125 behind Florida’s 49.2125 on balance beam.

But the Sooners cranked up their gymnastics, scoring a 49.425 or higher in their final three events to separate themselves from the Bruins and the other four teams.

Cipra bounced back from her dropped floor routine to hit a 9.8125 and lead UCLA off on vault. The Bruins nearly stuck all of their landing with Cipra and Bynum taking miniscule hops forward. Freshman Madison Preston improved her semifinal score to a 9.825 and sophomore Napualani Hall drilled her vault to lead the Bruins with a 9.850.

At the halfway point, big scores from the five other schools left UCLA in sixth place heading into uneven bars.

Bars, the Bruins’ worst event, started off cleanly behind Francis’ 9.825. Sonya Meraz followed, but struggled on her final handstand and nearly went over. The sophomore fought through and stuck her dismount for a 9.7375.

Fellow sophomore JaNay Honest also had a clean routine scoring a 9.8125 in her third event of the night to go along with a 9.8375 on floor and a 9.7625 on vault.

“Tonight, we left it all on the floor, fighting for every tenth, every landing that we could,” Honest said. “We know that we can compete (with these teams) if we continue to improve and grow and upgrade our gymnastics.”

In her only event of the night, Peng-Peng Lee seamlessly completed her bar transitions and nailed her handstands. A small hop backwards on her landing brought the redshirt junior’s score to 9.85. In her final uneven bars routine as a UCLA gymnast, DeJesus notched another stuck landing and a 9.875 for the Bruins.

With only balance beam left in the 2016 season, coach Valorie Kondos Field huddled her team together before moving to the last rotation.

Kondos Field encouraged her team to leave it all out on the floor and told the gymnasts they had already defied expectations to make it this far.

“They reached the top of the pyramid with competitive greatness tonight,” Kondos Field said. “We wanted to leave tonight with no regrets and this team surprised a lot of people this weekend.”

Junior Mikaela Gerber led off with another smooth balance beam routine that earned 9.90s from three judges, averaging a 9.875. In her first Super Six, freshman Katelyn Ohashi had a near-flawless routine – smooth tumbling runs, a stuck landing and no balance checks – to earn UCLA’s first 9.90 of the evening.

“This was it – go big or go home,” Ohashi said. “We’re not going to have our seniors next year, but how we did tonight and competed, it’ll build our confidence for next year.”

DeJesus ended her career with a small hop forward on her landing and a 9.85 on her final beam routine.

Francis, a first-team All-American and co-NCAA individual champion on beam with Florida senior Bridget Sloan, punctuated her career with her second 9.95 in two days and pushed the Bruins ahead of the Bulldogs.

UCLA wraps up the 2016 season with a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Team Finals. The Bruins graduate only three seniors – DeJesus, Bynum and Francis – and bring in a talented freshman class, including 2012 Olympic gold medalist Kyla Ross, in hopes of making another run at an NCAA title.

“This experience will infuse to them everything we’ve been explaining to them all year,” Kondos Field said after the awards ceremony. “Focusing on the little details, how the sacrifices you make in the season, it’ll all be worth it in the end.”