Bruins hope to stick a win
By Michael Wozny
April 23, 2008 9:05 p.m.
Every routine must be flawless.
Every landing must be stuck.
Near perfection is required from every athlete, or the Bruins will go home early.
When the UCLA gymnastics team begins competition at the NCAA Championships today in Athens, Ga., it will need to perform at its best to have a chance at bringing a national championship back to Westwood.
The Bruins are seeded ninth out of 12 teams and will have to place in the top three in their half of the bracket in tonight’s preliminaries to advance to the Super Six Team Finals on Friday.
The competition will be tough, as the Bruins will go up against No. 1 Georgia and No. 2 Utah in the preliminaries, both of which are teams UCLA has lost to this season. UCLA will also face Michigan, Stanford and Denver tonight.
“It’s a tough draw because they are all really strong teams, but we have been preparing to do the best we can, and I think we will do well,” sophomore Anna Li said.
“Every day we have been training like it was a competition, and we are prepared to give it our all,” Li said.
Georgia is the three-time defending national champion and the overwhelming favorite to win it all on its home floor.
But the Bruins are not intimidated by the other teams and are focused on performing their own routines without mistakes, junior Kristina Comforte said.
“We are confident and expect to go out there and compete how we train, focusing on ourselves and doing the best that we can possibly do,” Comforte said. “We have no control over the scores anybody else gets, so we are just going to do what we do in the gym all the time and hopefully win a national championship.”
If the Bruins are to make a serious run for the national title, they will likely have to score even higher than their season-best 196.925, as several other teams competing at the championships have scored over 197.
Injuries have hindered UCLA gymnasts throughout this season, keeping Li, Comforte and senior Tasha Schwikert out of several events at different times in the last few months. All three are back in the lineup, though, and will need to contribute solid scores tonight.
“There have been many bumps in the road for us this year, but the trials and tribulations are what make this so fun,” coach Valerie Kondos Field said. “It shows the character of your team. We’re working out the small details, but we plan on still competing Friday night.”
For seniors Tasha Schwikert, Jordan Schwikert and Natalie Padilla, the NCAA Championships will be the last gymnastics competition of their careers.
“I’m going to give it my all in as many events as I can, even though I have a strained Achilles,” Tasha Schwikert said. “I’m going to have fun and take in every single moment there because it will be my last time ever in competition.”
The Bruins, especially the seniors, want to make the NCAA Championships a meet to remember, and that starts tonight with the need to have dominant performances from every gymnast.
“We are all excited about the championships because we are going to go out and do the absolute best that we can,” Jordan Schwikert said. “We aren’t going to hold back at all, because there is nothing to lose. We have the potential to advance, and we will get there because we all want it that bad.”
