UCLA didn’t need Katelyn Ohashi to secure its second straight Pac-12 championship, but the viral sensation’s new floor routine had the perfect ending for the occasion.
Ohashi extended her right arm and dropped the mic on Utah as her sixth perfect 10 of the season capped off a clutch floor rotation that propelled UCLA to a season-high 198.4 and secured its 19th conference title on Saturday in West Valley City, Utah.
DROP THAT MIC. 🎤@katelyn_ohashi debuted her new floor routine and music at tonight at the #Pac12Gym Championships.
Oh yeah, and she won…with a 🔟, of course. 💁🏻♀️
The @uclagymnastics senior takes home the @OpusBank #12Best moment of the meet. pic.twitter.com/V8oQb25eAC
— Pac-12 Network (@Pac12Network) March 24, 2019
Hanging onto a slim half-tenth lead over Utah entering the final rotation, UCLA finished the meet on floor, its strongest event, and Utah finished on its best event vault. The Utes are ranked second in the country on the event and have the nation’s best vaulter in MyKayla Skinner.
But the Bruins, ranked first on floor, had no trouble overpowering Skinner’s meet-high-tying 9.95 vault. Ohashi and junior Kyla Ross delivered perfect 10s. Junior Gracie Kramer and sophomore Pauline Tratz tied their career-highs with 9.95s. The Utes, who still finished with a season-high 198.025, had just two scores of 9.9 or higher on vault.
UCLA performed so well on floor that it had already won the meet by two-tenths before Ohashi stepped to the floor for the final routine.
“It’s really not about the score,” head coach Valorie Kondos Field told reporters. “It’s about going head-to-head in competition and making sure we leave with no regret, so we were able to do that.”
Along with their Pac-12 team championship, the Bruins swept at least a share of all individual championships. Ohashi, Ross and Skinner shared the floor title with matching perfect 10s. Ross also won the bars crown with another 10, which propelled her to her second consecutive Pac-12 all-around title with a total score of 39.8. Ohashi and UCLA junior Grace Glenn won beam with 9.95s, while Skinner and UCLA junior Felicia Hano shared the vault title with 9.95s.
“We’ve worked really hard for this,” Ohashi told reporters. “Today, I felt the calmest I ever have competing, strangely. And I think what it looked like is we have all really prepared well and come together.”
Ross’ 10 on bars helped the Bruins turn a 0.15-point deficit after the first rotation into a two-tenth lead halfway through the meet. The 2012 Olympic gold medalist scored a perfect 10 for the school-record eighth straight week, tied the school record for 10s in a season with 11 and moved into second place on UCLA’s all-time perfect 10s list with 16 in her career.
UCLA tallied the country’s highest team score this year and still has nearly a month until the national finals. When asked by Pac-12 Networks’ Samantha Peszek whether the team that continues to shatter records has anything left to improve on before its regional meet in two weeks, Kondos Field smiled.
“Oh heck yeah,” the coach said.
