Pac-10's (UCLA Focus)

by BruinsFan

Here are some belated comments on the Pac-10 Championships.

 UCLA did a wonderful job in this meet, particularly on bars. Congratulations to them for hitting 24-for-24 for the first time this season and winning back the Pac-10 title. They looked great. Also, congratulations to those who subbed for Yvonne Tousek. They all came in and competed well, particularly Jeanette on bars.

UCLA started on vault, showing five 10.0 SVs. Jeanette Antolin and Onnie Willis did particularly nice vaults, both sticking their Yurchenko-fulls. Jamie hit a good vault and Malia's front pike went well, but Kristin Parker had a bit of an awkward landing on her piked barani and Michelle Conway's opening Hristakieva was a little sluggish.

On bars, Malia opened with a beautiful routine, hitting handstands and showing a beautiful Jaegar and double layout with just a small step forward.  Kristin Parker did a high piked Jaegar and finished with a double layout. The next four up just rocked their routines. Onnie really got some momentum going, finishing with a stuck double front-half, and Jeanette did a great job, showing Higgins roll-invert-piked Jaegar and Higgins-piked front in tucked front-half out. Jamie's routine was smooth, finishing with a stuck, sailing full-in, and Doni Thompson capped it off with a great routine. She showed her usual big swing and high Tkatchev, with just a small shuffle on her full-in.

Doni started beam off well with just a small break on her series. Jamie had a great routine (absolutely solid punch front-wolf jump-Korbut, no hesitations) but had an error on her dismount, only making a full and taking a step to the side. Malia was slightly off on her series and broke the  connection between her switch leap and two straddle jumps, but I really like her presentation up there. Onnie was super-solid, showing a new mount.  The punch front was put back in and nailed, and she had just a step on her dismount. Kristin Parker was a bit wobbly but overall did a nice job, and Alyssa's only mistake was a slight break after her full turn with leg horizontal.

Michelle Conway opened the final rotation on floor with the best floor routine I've seen her do at UCLA. She showed a strong double pike to open and they smartly changed the triple turn she struggles with to a double. Malia came up a little short on her first pass (two steps forward) but everything else looked great. Kristin Parker just launched and nailed that Arabian double front and finished with a big double pike. Alyssa opened with a high whip-double full but had a mistake on her second pass, showing just a front full (a bit sloppy) instead of her normal rudi. She ended with a whip half-front layout. Onnie sold her routine as usual, with super tumbling. Jamie actually had a bit of a sluggish performance for her on floor. Her double layout was powerful but not quite as clean as normal, and she bailed on her second pass, tucking the full twist and leaving out the layout step-out. She stuck it though, so the judges really couldn't deduct as it was performed well and she still had the most difficulty in the meet. She landed her huge double tuck just a bit low.

I was really impressed with Arizona's bars. First-up Andi McCabe did a big full-in dismount, and the second and third girls up did Fontaine and double layout, both executed nicely. Anchor Randi Liljenquist did a beautiful job, hitting her handstands, showing a beautiful piked Jaegar, and dismounting with a stuck healy immediate rudi. Liljenquist actually could have placed higher in the all-around had she not had an uncharacteristically wobbly beam set (9.65). For the third year in a row, I love her FX. She really has great style and I love watching her perform. She tumbled triple twist, front full-front pike, and double full.

Stanford started out a bit roughly on FX. Shelly Goldberg completely blew her routine, sitting down her punch double front, taking two running steps out of bounds on her front full-front pike, and collapsing to her hands and knees on her front through to rudi dismount. Leveille left out the punch front she normally does in her first pass but had really nice presentation. She had a nice bars set with a piked Jaegar and double layout dismount. She also had a wonderful beam routine. She had the most difficulty in the meet on the event (front mount to double stag jump, ff-layout-layout, tuck jump-punch front, switch leap-wolf 3/4, and RO double tuck), with only one break, a slight step forward on her dismount. Everything in the interior was rock-solid! Stanford had three gymnasts with that ff-layout-layout series (Beck, Delgado, who mounted with two flairs, and Leveille). Impressive!

For Oregon State, Jerra Lopez hit her floor, including a unique first pass of punch front full stepout-front handspring-barani-layout stepout. Anchor Annie Campbell hit a strong full-in mount and double pike dismount. Campbell struggled on bars, hitting her feet on the low bar following a Gienger and having to tuck her cast up to handstand. In addition, she was nowhere near handstand on her straddle back following a healy. She finished with a stuck open double tuck. And, of course, there's Elizabeth Jillson. I LOVE her bars! Beautiful Shaposhnikova, the best piked Jaegar you'll ever see, and a double layout with just a small step back. Big, agressive, smooth swing. Awesome.

Arizona State had some real struggles on beam to start out, but came back with some nice floor routines. Carla DeMartini struggled a bit with her last pass on floor (tucked the end instead of laying it out) but had an otherwise-nice routine. Jada Cox is using Kristin Parker's FX music and Cassidy Vreeke tumbled a high full-in. Kari Muth didn't have the most difficult tumbling on her team but had a wonderful performance. Her facial expressions in this routine crack me up. It's a lot of fun. Also, Maggie Germaine has a nice look on bars (straddle back handstand). She is TALL!

Didn't see too much of Washington or Cal, though I did see a bit of Dodd (double pike and 2 1/2 twist on floor).

Fun, fun meet. On to Regionals! GO BRUINS!