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

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There was much happening in Westwood this past weekend. Let’s just get right down to it…

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL -  It was a mixed weekend for Cori Close’s team at the John Wooden Center, as they did well in beating Oregon State this past Thursday, 69-60, but shot like a little girl’s YWCA team in having their tails handed to them two days later by Oregon, 83-62, falling behind 52-23 at halftime in that so-called game.

Rebekah Gardner’s 19 points, eight rebounds and four steals paced UCLA, while Markel Walker had a whopping 18 rebounds to go along with her 16 points and nine assists in the win over the Beavers.

Against Oregon’s Ducks, however, it was a completely different story as the Bruins missed their first nine shots of the game, ending with a shooting percentage of only 30%.

As good as Walker was against OSU, she had her worst game as a UCLA player versus the Ducks as she made only one of her 15 shots and scored only three points, apparently being unable to hit the side of a barn.

Thea Lemberger was a bright spot as she scored 18 points, nine of them coming by the three-point route as her 26 baskets from behind the arc lead the team.

Gardner had a monster game with her 22 points, 15 rebounds and six assists, serving as the other bright spot in the Bruins’ disaster; it’s getting ever so clearer that Gardner is the most valuable player of this team as she has been the most consistent Lady Bruin hoopster.

Now sitting at 3-4 in the Pac-12 Conference and 8-10 overall, these Bruins will hit the road to face league newbies Utah and Colorado, the Utes in Salt Lake City on Thursday, January 26 and the Buffaloes in Boulder on Sunday, January 29.

MEN’S VOLLEYBALL -  This volleyball team is off to a good start, wanting dearly to give legendary coach Al Scates a going away present with a 20th national championship.

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When Valorie Kondos Field, UCLA’s women’s gymnastics coach, said that her team was going to work on the balance beam and fix the problems that they had there against Utah, she wasn’t kidding.

It was crystal clear that the hard work on that apparatus paid off against California in Berkeley this past Sunday, as the Bruins won big over their older Golden Bear sisters 196.675 – 192.55 at Haas Pavilion; five of the six UCLA gymnasts scored higher than the top Cal gymnast on beam, led by Samantha Peszek, Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, and Lichelle Wong, who all scored 9.925.

As good as these Bruins were on beam, which was most impressive as that is historically their weakest event, they did even better on vault as all six Bruins scored higher than the top Bear scorer, with Vanessa Zamarripa providing the exclamation point with a perfect ten on that apparatus.

Here is a video clip, courtesy of YouTube, of Zamarripa’s vault:

Vanessa Zamarripa Vault @ Cal – 1/15/2012 on YouTube

Peszek and Kaelie Baer scored career highs on vault with a 9.925 and a 9.825

Zamarripa topped everyone in the uneven bars, earning a 9.9 to go with her perfect 10.0 on vault and showing everyone, once and for all, that she’s back. Olivia Courtney was second with a 9.8.

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Here’s the latest on selected Bruin Olympic sports on this Martin Luther King Day…

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL -   These Bruins disappointed in the first of their two rivalry games with USC at the John Wooden Center on campus this past Saturday, losing to the Women of Troy 47-43 and falling to 2-3 in the Pac-12 Conference and 7-9 overall.

Cori Close’s team’s lack of shooting success was the culprit in this contest, with Thea Lemberger and Markel Walker combining to make just 4 of 23 shots. Walker did have 14 rebounds, but her two out of 11 shooting outweighed that.

The contest was close throughout, and UCLA did have a four point lead in the second half before they went around nine minutes without a basket, which ultimately did them in.

Rebekah Gardner was the only Bruin who could put the ball in the basket against ‘SC, scoring a game-high 20 points.

The Oregon schools come to the Wooden Center this weekend, Oregon State on Thursday, January 19 and Oregon on Saturday, January 21.

MEN’S VOLLEYBALL -   Now third ranked in the country, this team won the Outrigger Hotels Invitational in Honolulu, HI this past weekend by beating the host team, the Hawaii Warriors, on Saturday in straight sets before a partisan crowd of over 3,000.

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This was the first step in what is expected to be a great season, hopefully concluding in their seventh national championship (in which they are one of the favorites to win).

Here’s the highlight clip from John Wooden Center - enjoy!

UCLA Gymnastics Defeats Utah in Season Opener on YouTube

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Much is expected of Valorie Kondos-Field’s top-ranked UCLA Women’s Gymnastics team this season, and they did not disappoint in their season opener against fifth ranked Utah at the John Wooden Center.

Before a packed crowd that was very loud and enthusiastic throughout the meet – which included the yell crew, alumni yell leader Geoff Strand, who’s a fixture and a tradition at football games, and the UCLA Alumni Band - the Bruins defeated Utah, 196.075 – 196.025, after beginning the day in spectacular fashion by having four gymnasts scoring 9.9 or higher on the vault, led by Tauny Frattone’s 9.95 and Samantha Peszek’s, who won the individual all-around with a score of 39.45 (out of 40), career-high 9.925.

Vanessa Zamarippa, seeing action for the first time in two years, showed no rust in scoring a 9.9 on the vault (she was the NCAA champion on the vault in 2010) and a 9.825 on the uneven parallel bars.

The domination continued on the bars as all six Bruins scored at least a 9.825 on that apparatus, led by Aisha Gerber’s 9.9 and Olivia Courtney’s 9.875.

It was on UCLA’s next rotation, the balance beam – which has historically been these Bruins’ weakest apparatus – that the Bruin fans in the crowd started to worry as not only did Courtney and Lichelle Wong perform shakily, scoring a 9.4 and a 9.55 respectively, they had to count those scores when Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, normally a solid lock on the beam, fell during her routine.

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The UCLA Bruins’ women’s gymnastics team, ranked number one in the preseason, will kick off their 2012 season this Sunday afternoon at the John Wooden Center on campus, hosting the preseason #5 team, perennial power, and longtime rival – who is now in the Pac-12 – Utah Utes.

Coached by Valorie Kondos-Field, who’s entering her 22nd year in Westwood, these Bruins are loaded and barring any unforseen setbacks, are among the favorites to win their 7th national championship and 6th since 2000 after getting beaten by Alabama for the national championship last season by the narrowest of margins.

Despite All-American Sydney Sawa having shoulder surgery and being rendered out for the bulk of the year, UCLA returns seven other All-Americans, including 2010 NCAA vault champion Vanessa Zamarripa, who sat out 2011 with a torn Achilles tendon and is chomping at the bit to compete again.

Samantha Paszek is another key Bruin coming back as the sophomore is the reigning NCAA beam champion, as is Olivia Courtney, the 2011 Pac-10 Freshman of the Year, 10-time All-American Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs,  two-time All-American Aisha Gerber, Monique DelaTorre, and Tauny Frattone.

Mattie Larson, the 2010 U.S. floor exercise champion and World Championships silver medalist, and Cassie Whitcomb head a great freshman class who will, as is Kondos-Field’s – also known as Miss Val’s – practice, see plenty of action.

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Happy New Year! Hopefully 2012 can be a great one for UCLA and for Bruin Nation.

Here is what’s been happening with two of the Bruins’ Olympic sports as the new year is underway:

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL –   Cori Close’s team has been struggling as much as their football and men’s basketball counterparts, losing five of their last six games on their way to their record currently standing at 6-7 overall and 1-1 in the Pac-12 Conference.

The Lady Bruins’ one win since December 4 was their Pac-12 opener against California on the 29th at the John Wooden Center, which saw UCLA winning over the Golden Bears 60-55. Thea Lemberger stepped up for the Bruins with a career-high 26 points, with Markel Walker adding 18 and the team making like Shaquille O’ Neal in blocking 13 shots, with Corinne Costa contributing seven of them.

The reward for that performance? Merely having to try and beat the fourth-ranked team in the country, perennial Pac-10/12 basketball queen Stanford on New Year’s Eve.

Like the football and men’s basketball teams on the same day, these Bruins couldn’t hang with the Cardinal at the John Wooden Center, getting blown out by a 77-50 score. Walker and Rebekah Gardner were UCLA’s bright spots, Walker getting 11 points and seven rebounds with Gardner leading the Bruins with 17 points to go along with her six boards.

Considering that Jasmine Dixon, the Bruins’ best player, and Atonye Nyingifa, who has been the leading scorer this season to date, are both out for the year with torn knee ligaments, maiming the team’s offensive attack, UCLA is fortunate to be 1-1 in the conference.

They will head for the desert this weekend to face Arizona on Thursday the 5th, and Arizona State on Saturday the 7th.

MEN’S VOLLEYBALL –  The season is about to start for the men’s volleyball team, as they try to match their lady counterparts and win a national championship of their own.

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Two words can best describe the UCLA Women’s Basketball team in their marquee game versus the sixth-ranked Tennessee Lady Volunteers on Saturday at the John Wooden Center on campus:

NICE TRY.

When your opponent makes their first eight shots from the field and 18 of their first 20 field goal attempts, shooting 76% in the first half and 69.2% for the game, there’s not much you can do and it really doesn’t matter what kind of defense you throw at them.

That’s exactly what Pat Summit’s Lady Vols did in front of a sellout crowd of 2,025 at the Wooden Center as with Cori Close’s team wearing throwback uniforms from the 1978 season – the only time a UCLA women’s hoops team won a national championship – every Tennessee starter scored in double figures, led by Meighan Simmons’ 18 points and Glory Johnson’s 17, as the Lady Vols comfortably beat UCLA 85-64.

It was Summitt’s 1,078th win, the only coach in NCAA basketball, male or female, to have 1,000, and it was Tennessee’s 18th triumph in 19 games against the Bruins all-time. Despite having early-onset Alzheimer’s, she is currently in her 38th year as head coach of the Lady Vols and as evidenced by their win, shows no signs of slowing down.

UCLA is now 5-4 on the season.

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For the members of UCLA’s Women’s Basketball team, this is one of the reasons that they came to UCLA – I’m positive of that.

How often do you get to face a team that is not only in the top ten and has more national chamionships than anyone in women’s college basketball, but has a coach that is nearly every bit as good as the late great John Wooden, who’s only two NCAA titles behind him and has won more games than anyone, male or female, in the history of college hoops?

That is the situation that Cori Close’s Bruins are in as they will play the sixth-ranked Tennessee Lady Volunteers, with iconic coach Pat Summitt, at the John Wooden Center on campus this Saturday, December 17, at 2:00 p.m.

I don’t think I could be more obvious when I say that this game will be sold out – with capacity of the John Wooden Center being at only 2,000, it most likely is a sellout now.

My advice to those fans who were lucky enough to get tickets is to get there early.

At 5-3 on the season so far, UCLA hasn’t exactly been chopped liver as they are a solid team with a good nucleus of players, particularly Atonye Nyingifa, Rebekah Gardner, and Markel Walker, who has just returned from injury.

However, in order to score an epic upset over these Lady Vols from Knoxville, TN, they have to play a perfect game.

Forwards Shekinna Stricklen and Glory Johnson lead 6-2 Tennessee with 16.9 and 12.8 points a game, respectively. Junior guard Taber Spani averages 12 points a contest, while freshman point guard Ariel Massengale is averaging 5.8 assists a game.

Along with Stricklen and Johnson, Vicki Baugh, at 6′ 4″, makes a more than formidable front line for the Lady Vols; Johnson avarages nine rebounds a game, Stricklen 8.8, and Baugh is averaging six boards a contest.

To say that it will be a huge challenge for the Bruins would be an understatement.

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