Women’s Gymnastics Posts Nation’s Best Score In Win

Can it get more obvious that coach Valorie Kondos Field and her ladies on UCLA’s women’s gymnastics team are on a mission to win their seventh national championship?

I mean, all they did this past Sunday at the John Wooden Center was achieve a score of 197.579, which happens to be the best meet score by any team this season to date in treating the San Jose State Spartans like yesterday’s trash and completely smashing them by more than four points.

There were tons of career and personal highs, starting with Samantha Peszek as she won her third straight all-around with a career-high 39.5 out of 40, winning the beam with a score of 9.9 in the process.

Of the six Bruins who competed on the vault, five of them had a score of at least 9.875, with all six of them scoring higher than the best San Jose State gymnast on that apparatus; Tauny Frattone won the event with a score of 9.95, the second time she achieved that this year.

Here are the highlights of the meet, thanks once again to UCLABruins.com:

UCLA Gymnastics Defeats San Jose St on YouTube

Vanessa Zamarripa and Olivia Courtney were also outstanding on vault with scores of 9.9 each.

Courtney and Aisha Gerber were their usual outstanding selves on the uneven parallel bars, winning that event with season-best scores of 9.9, while five of the six UCLA gymnasts on the balance beam had scores of at least 9.8, continuing to make up for their below-par showing against Utah earlier this month. Lichelle Wong did particularly well with her score of 9.875.

The domination continued on the floor exercise as the lowest Bruin score in that event was a 9.775. Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs won the floor with her near-perfect 9.95, followed by Courtney and Peszek’s 9.875 (each) as five of the six Bruins on that apparatus outscored the top SJSU competitor.

I’m sure that those Spartans felt a sense of relief and mercy when the meet ended.

“This is what we’ve been waiting for,” a pleased Kondos Field said afterward. “…if we can keep doing this, keep getting into the groove and improve the little things and stay healthy, I think we’re right on track.”

NEXT OPPONENT:  Washington in Seattle, Friday, January 27

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