Between the Bars
Febraury 16, 2004
Wow - our meet up at Cal-Berkeley was one of those amazing evenings.
Starting with our warm-ups, it was one great moment after another.
Before the meet, I finally got to meet our Bruin Soccer Buddies from
Northern California. A group of great non-gymnast teenagers came to our
PAC -10 meet two years ago at Stanford and wore home-made UCLA t-shirts.
Ever since then I've been e-mailing the group's "leader" Kara, and we've
become e-mail Bruin Buddies. (It's actually quite charming to have a 17
year-old who I've never met address me in e-mails as "Hey Buddy".) Anyway,
they were at the meet this weekend two hours early, in their new home-made
UCLA t-shirts. In fact they even brought Shannon Bruin. One of their
friends couldn't make it due to her own basketball game, so they got a
4-foot tall cut-out of Shannon Miller, dressed her in UCLA attire and held
her up in their friend's place to cheer on the Bruins. They even turned
Shannon Bruin around so she could stand at attention for the national
anthem. Too funny.
Still during warm-ups:
Courtney Walker did some beautiful bar routines and dismounts - yeah! The
ankle is finally coming along.
Jamie Dantzscher did two bar dismounts on the hard landing surface and
her middle tumbling pass on floor. Both were the first times this year that
she's been able to do those. It's looking good for a few events this
weekend, starting with our meet on Friday at Fullerton.
Meet highlights:
Holly Murdock was back to doing beautiful gymnastics. She's had a rough
few months and just kept getting more and more down on herself, plus she
got a nasty case of the flu in January that knocked her out for a few
weeks. Without question, Holly is looking healthier and happier than ever.
Right before she went up on beam, I told her all the usual things, and then
I said, "Holly, have a great time up there ... you've certainly earned it."
She got a huge smile on her face and said in her sweet Northern Irish
accent, "You're right Miss Val, I have", then proceeded to perform the most
beautiful beam routine I've ever seen her do.
Ashley Peckett competed in the all-around for only her second time this
season. She was amazing. Ashley usually hits her routines, but not with the
confidence her talent and hard work should provide her. We've worked really
hard on this during the week in training. It was a great reward to see her
transfer everything she's worked on in training to competition. It was like
she turned on a switch and the nerves and fidgeting transmuted into
controlled aggression.
Jennifer Sutton came in for us on vault at the last minute. As with
Ashley, it was the first time all year that I've seen Jennifer calm and
relaxed in her run, which helped her blast her vault, scoring a 9.7 out of
a possible 9.8. YEAH Jen! (Note: The judges flashed a 9.7, but the official
score sheet listed a 9.65 as a final score)
Kate Richardson competed her elite beam routine. In college terms, it has
20-tenths in bonus, versus the necessary 5-tenths. While it wasn't perfect,
I was excited to see her "hit" her routine and perform as aggressively as
she performs her college routine. We are planning on having her compete her
elite bar and beam routine at Fullerton this Friday.
Lori Winn, Jamie Williams and Yvonne Tousek all stepped up their
performances - competing better than they have all season. Hats off to
Yvonne, who stayed focused on competing her floor routine while all the
rest of us were having a Maloney love-fest.
Yep, tears were flowing while we all watched Kristen Maloney compete her
first floor routine since nationals in 2001. As we all know, Maloney has
had an arduous and frustrating recovery from a stress fracture in her shin.
None of us knew if she'd ever be able to do gymnastics again, let alone
compete in vault and floor. As she was performing on floor I turned to
Jeanette and said, "I feel like I'm looking at a mirage. Maloney on floor.
Incredible." I then looked at her teammates, whose faces were shining with
happiness and tears for their teammate they've seen go through so much. As
soon as she slid into her final pose, I lost it. I knew it would happen ...
and I must say it felt really good to shed such happy tears.
To cap the magic off, Jeanette finished our competition with what
Jeanette does best ... the huge booming 10.0 exclamation point on vault!
To complete the evening, we had a nice Bruin contingency in the stands -
replete with some of our Bruin alumnae, Laura Neustedter (thanks for the
flowers), Jill Andrews, Caroline Lee, and Malia Jones and her parents. It's
always great to finish an event with embraces from our Bruin alumnae. It
keeps the family circle complete.
To our ubiquitous Bruins, Pat and Harry ... So glad you were there to share
in the fun!
~miss val
