Gymnastics looks to increase consistency as Pac-12 championship nears
UCLA gymnastics has one final regular season meet against San Jose State at Pauley Pavilion. (Kanishka Mehra/Photo editor)
By Coral Smith
March 10, 2021 11:12 a.m.
With the postseason just around the corner, the Bruins need to put it all together.
No. 14 UCLA gymnastics (5-2, 4-2 Pac-12) will compete in its final regular season meet this weekend and go on to face its conference opponents at the Pac-12 championship to open up the postseason. As the Bruins are currently ranked below three other Pac-12 teams in the standings, coach Chris Waller said the team needs to finally find consistency in order to compete.
“We’ve just got to figure it out, time’s running out,” Waller said. “We need to figure out how to put it all together and have everybody be at their best when it’s needed.”
While UCLA has gotten close to putting together four strong rotations in one meet and was even on track for a season-high score going into the final rotation during Saturday’s meet versus California, the Bruins have not yet been able to close it out.
After recording season-highs on vault and floor and its second-highest score of the year on bars, UCLA struggled on the beam as the team matched its season-low of 48.650 on the event, preventing the Bruins from crossing the threshold of 197.000 for what would have been the third week in a row.
“It’s definitely a little frustrating because we know that we can do a lot better and we know that we can put four events together, we just haven’t done it yet,” said freshman Chae Campbell. “I think we should use this meet as fuel to do better in the next meet, and I have no doubt this team can pull it together.”
After injuries and an abbreviated training schedule, the Bruins started the season slow on vault, on which Waller sent out the minimum five gymnasts to compete multiple times.
But in recent weeks, the vault score has greatly improved as the gymnasts got healthier. Both sophomore Emma Andres and junior Sekai Wright took turns in the lineup after recovering from injury, adding depth in the event for UCLA and culminating in a season-high 49.375 versus Cal.
“That’s what we want to be doing towards the end of the season, is getting our bench deeper, not thinner, and that’s the direction we’re going,” Waller said.
UCLA has also slowly gained steam on bars and floor, as the Bruins recorded a 49.450 for both events during Saturday’s meet, after starting the season off with identical 48.975s. This increase has partially come about because of contributions from freshmen such as Frida Esparza and Sara Ulias on bars and Campbell on floor.
But where UCLA has struggled the most this season is on beam, the only rotation on which it averages lower than 49.000. Though the Bruins had recorded a score as high as 49.425 in their meet against rival Utah, UCLA has had to count a fall each of the last two weeks, preventing the team from closing out its meets with four strong events.
“We’ve shown that we can score really well on each of the events, so … as a team, we have to be mentally strong to finish strong,” said senior Pauline Tratz.
If the Bruins’ four best scores on each event were combined together, they would have a total team score of 197.800, a mark UCLA passed twice in the 2020 season and higher than eight of the teams currently ranked ahead of the Bruins have been able to score.
“We’ve put together a great performance on every single event. The next step for UCLA gymnastics is to put together that sort of national championship-quality performance on every event in the same day,” Waller said.
