Post-Meet Quotes - NCAA Super Six Team Finals
April 25, 2003 | Gymnastics
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UCLA Senior Onnie Willis
"It was really exciting. (On floor) when (Kristin) Parker went up second, it didn't quite hit me until she landed the last pass and she was so excited and she hit her pose and I started crying. And Jamie said, 'Don't cry, you still have to go.' I said okay, so there were no hugs for anyone until I was done. It hit me at that moment that this is going to be our last time competing with our team."
UCLA Senior Kristin Parker
"I think it was an awesome, awesome experience. I started getting a little big nervous right before beam, and Val pulled me aside and said, 'Just honor God through the whole thing, no doubts. Honor Him and go out and do it and enjoy every moment.' I remember I did my first pass, and I did a circle and I looked at our fans and our team and I thought, I love this. It was so awesome, it was so much fun."
UCLA Senior Malia Jones
"I always have fun competing floor so that was just extra special. I was having so much fun, and I will always remember that forever. That's been my best event all season, and I love performing. It is really cool. It doesn't seem real. I love all my teammates so much. I thank them for being my teammates."
UCLA Junior Jamie Dantzscher
"Audience or no audience, I was going to be hyped for this meet anyways. It didn't really matter. I forgot about the audience and it didn't really affect me. "
UCLA Junior Jeanette Antolin
"I think our team has enough confidence in their ability to go out there and hit routines that when we have a fall we know we can bounce right back and go out there and do what we need to do. We had a couple falls tonight but our team was confident enough to go out there and hit our routines and do our jobs."
UCLA Senior Doni Thompson
"This meet actually meant a lot more than anyone realizes. My sister passed away three weeks ago. I missed a week of training, and I was able to get ready for the meet and start training my routines with every skill for the first time with two weeks left. I really don't think I could have done it without my sister's help. I really believe that she was with me every step of the way."
UCLA Head Coach Valorie Kondos Field
On Team National Championship:
"I had a nice long talk with myself this morning, and I just had such confidence in these people, not just as athletes, but also in their integrity as people. All I asked was that we did the best job we could, and that's what we did. We had some falls out there, but the team never lost its focus."
On beam performance:
"It wasn't surprising to me because our falls and mistakes weren't because we were holding back. On the beam, if you doubt yourself you are off, but they had such integrity and confidence."
On the goals of the team:
"This is exactly what we prepared for from day one Sept. 8. We came out yesterday to make the Super Six and saved some of our talent in reserve. What's interesting is that we took all of the energy and all of the actual excitement and having it focused. It's a fine line, they call it being in the zone, to be able to be aggressive and yet not too aggressive, and not hold back. As soon as you doubt yourself you'll be off the equipment. That's how we trained ourselves every single week. I attribute that character to every single member on the team."
On training for this meet:
"We haven't had many meets this year where we've gone 24 for 24, maybe we had one. So, that's how you train for it. We've done it all year. It just comes down to training them to be in the moment. They have to do that. We compete how we train. You have to learn to be in the moment and focus on the moment you can't focus on anything else but that. You're going to have to think. That's why they call it sport. It's not easy to learn how to think. It's how you handle the adversity that determines whether you have a champioship or not."
On experiences tonight:
"Obviously we had three falls, we could go out there right now, and they could make those routines without falls, no doubt. Obviously on the girls' routines, I am especially thrilled for our seniors. They had the best routines of their collegiate careers. Kristin had the best vault I've seen her do of her career. Malia came off the floor and I said, 'Malia, that is the best routine you have ever had of your college career,' and she said, 'I know!'"
On entering the final rotation:
"We don't talk about scores. We don't know where we are, we don't know what's going on, we do our job and hopefully if we are putting our best routines on the floor, we'll be rewarded for it. This whole winning thing is great, but I would never base my success on one event. Our success is based on what we did the entire year. I would like to be able to say that if we didn't win, we would be feeling the same way. I'd like to think we would have the same sense of satisfaction knowing we did the best job we could all year long, not just tonight in one meet."
On how this team compares to other championship teams:
"These are just phenomenal human beings, and I am blessed to be their coach. I'm losing my Fab 5 seniors. On paper this is the most talented team ever assembled in collegiate gymnastics. We have had some very talented teams, but the depth of talent and depth of character that this team had, no team has ever matched that."
Alabama Head Coach Sarah Patterson on her team's second-place finish:
"I told our girls to go out and have fun tonight. I told them, 'Let's make a great team beat us tonight,' and a great team (UCLA) did. Tonight, UCLA was the most talented team. I wanted our team to put ourselves in a position to win tonight, and I couldn't have asked for a better job out of us. We did a superb job on the uneven bars and on the floor as well. Dana Pierce did a great job tonight after struggle with her confidence during the course of the season at the fifth position."
Georgia Head Coach Suzanne Yoculan on her team's third-place finish
"We came into the competition a little down from yesterday and our team really had to dig deep. We also came into the competition with a couple of goals in mind. We were really focusing on trying to get in the top three. This is now our 15th year out of 17 that we were in the top three in the country. We really felt like it could very possibily be impossible. We never gave up. Another one of our goals was to set the momentum and make sure that anyone that did beat us they actually had to be better and be great. We set the pace. There was a certain point when we were sure UCLA was going to win the meet and everyone was competing for second and third place. We really felt like we set the pace and Alabama had to be better than us to win tonight and they were. Two great teams beat us and I feel great about the way our team did."
