UCLA gymnastics, Jordan Chiles lose in NCAA Championships

In an unlikely instant, the UCLA gymnastics team found itself in an uneasy spot.

Jordan Chiles, a two-time college champion in the uneven bars, fell off the bar early in her routine.

Even with the Bruins able to wipe her score off the board in the semifinal round of the NCAA Championships, the blunder set an ominous tone. It also left the Bruins in fourth place after the first rotation Thursday night inside Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.

After rallying to move into second place after the third rotation, UCLA bookended a forgettable night with more disappointment.

Katelyn Rosen stumbled on her landing in the vault. Mika Webster-Longin then took a few tiny steps backward on her landing.

Just like that, the Bruins’ season was over.

No. 4 UCLA finished in third place with a 197.275 in the four-team meet, 0.1875 points behind Minnesota, which overtook the Bruins in the final rotation.

The No. 13 Golden Gophers clinched their first trip to the NCAA finals in school history – becoming the lowest seed to reach that round since seeding began in 2014 – after Emma Slevin scored a 9.85 on the uneven bars.

Minnesota will join No. 1 Oklahoma as well as No. 2 LSU and No. 3 Florida in the championship round on Saturday after the latter two teams advanced earlier in the day.

“I’m still in a little disbelief,” Golden Gophers coach Jenny Hansen said in an ESPN2 interview. “What a night.”

It was one that left the Bruins in tears and filled with regrets.

“Am I a little disappointed?” Chiles told the Daily Bruin. “A hundred percent, but you know what? My team fought for every single thing that they were doing.”

Determined to make up for her early mistake, Chiles performed a nearly flawless routine on the balance beam during her team’s second rotation. Going second to last, she stuck the landing and tallied her team’s highest score to that point with a 9.95.

The Bruins continued to build momentum on the floor exercise, one of their specialties. Freshman Ashlee Sullivan scored a 9.9375 before ceding the floor to Chiles, who had recorded six perfect 10s in the event this season. She nearly added a seventh, unleashing her usual combination of flair and skill on the way to earning a 9.975 that gave her the NCAA individual championship.

“We didn’t start off with our strongest rotation,” UCLA coach Janelle McDonald told the Daily Bruin, “and so I thought that they really turned the page in the next two events and really went lights-out. They were really fighting for each moment and really trying to stay present through it.”

Interviewed on the ESPN2 broadcast before the final rotation with her team holding a 0.225 lead over the Golden Gophers, UCLA senior Ciena Alipio said her team just needed to act like it was competing inside Pauley Pavilion and do what it know how to do.

But what happened next didn’t resemble anything the Bruins had shown in sweeping through Big Ten competition for a second consecutive season.

While Rosen’s stumble that left her seated on the mat – giving her a 9.2125 – could be wiped away because of scoring procedures that allowed each team to erase its lowest mark on a given event, it heaped pressure on the teammates that followed.

When Webster-Longin took a couple of baby steps backward on her landing, leading to a 9.5875, the scores that came next hardly mattered. The Bruins were on their way to defeat. Not even Riley Jenkins’ 9.85, Sullivan’s 9.8 and Chiles’ 9.8875 could salvage the situation.

It was a defeat that left the gymnasts in tears during a bittersweet sendoff for All-Americans Chiles and Alipio. Remaining upbeat, Chiles suggested that her final floor routine was a good representation of her decorated career as a Bruin.

“I’m just happy that I went out there and gave it my all,” said Chiles, who won the AAI Award that goes to the top senior gymnast. “It’s a testament to everything that I’ve accomplished in the four years of being a part of UCLA and I’m just happy that that was the last routine that people got to see.”

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