Season best not enough for the Bruins

UCLA gymnastics scores 197.275 but fails to make team NCAA championships.

This was the type of score Chris Waller wanted. It just didn’t come with the matching result.

While UCLA delivered a season-high score of 197.275 at Saturday’s NCAA regional final in Morgantown, W. Va., the Bruins failed to advance to the NCAA championships after finishing third behind No. 4 Michigan (198.1) and No. 5 California (197.75).

It’s the first time since 2006 that UCLA hasn’t qualified for the national championships as a team. Saturday marked an abrupt ending to a season that has been fraught with challenges since the beginning, when the Bruins’ practices were delayed because of local health guidelines prohibiting gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wearing a black facemask on the team bus after the meet, Waller, the team’s second-year head coach, couldn’t hide the pride he felt despite the result.

“We got beat, but in terms of their attitude, in terms of what it looked like to be a championship team, this team got to that pinnacle,” Waller said on a videoconference. “It just wasn’t enough to get us to NCAAs.”

The 13th-ranked Bruins, plodding through a rebuilding year after graduating eight seniors, needed to be perfect. They pasted over an early mistake in the floor event and finished with a strong 49.425 in the first rotation. They were tied for second.

UCLA progressed through vault and bars with good, not great scores, but Michigan and Cal showed the consistent excellence of top-five teams. The Bruins had just six scores of 9.9 or higher through their final three rotations. Michigan and Cal combined for 20.

Trailing the Golden Bears by 0.225 points for second place entering the last rotation, UCLA started beam with a fall from senior Kendal Poston. Senior Nia Dennis, whose lingering shoulder injury has kept her from competing on the event regularly, followed with a 9.725.

Even though UCLA rebounded to not count a fall on the event, the early mishaps were enough to knock the Bruins out of contention. Cal clinched second place midway through the fourth rotation.

Still, the Bruins fought for skills as if they were still alive in the race. It showed the resilience Waller believed will define the memory of this team.

“We showed the world that you can be stuck really down in a pretty deep hole and climb yourself out,” Waller said. “Through every single challenge, they grew through it.”

After their final routine on beam, the Bruins gathered with their arms wrapped around one another’s shoulders. Their faces were covered by masks, but the disappointment was evident. Tears welled in junior Margzetta Frazier’s eyes.

Frazier, who earned her sixth consecutive score of 9.9 or better on bars with a 9.95 on Saturday, is in position to qualify for nationals as an individual along with freshman Chae Campbell (allaround) and Dennis (vault). Excluding scores from Michigan and Cal, the three Bruins were the top finishers in each event in Friday’s semifinal meet and can compete individually at the NCAA championships April 16 in Fort Worth, Texas. The NCAA will finalize the individual competitors over the weekend.

Sending individuals instead of a team to nationals is so foreign to the Bruins that Waller acknowledged he didn’t have a plan for how training would look for the next two weeks.