The Barometer Online

Issue date: 3/2/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Curtis Barnard Fast becoming a fan favorite, sophomore Jereme Bigelow performs part of her leaping series during her floor routine Friday night. Bigelow posted a 9.850 on the floor exercise.

The theme of Friday night's gymnastics meet could have been "new things."

The night was full of new things for the crowd of 4,028 that witnessed a couple new routines and a new style of judging. At the end of the night, the scores of both teams surpassed 196 as then-No. 4 UCLA outscored then-No. 9 OSU 196.575-196.350.

"Going into this meet, we were coming off of UW, which was a learning experience for us," junior Mandi Rodriguez said. "We were not so much focused on the score this meet as we were on hitting all our routines. The judging was more of a postseason feel - you saw some great performances where you expected to see 9.9s and instead you saw 9.75s or 9.8s. That was hard to see but you can't be focused on that."

Oregon State started the evening out on the vault and struggled to find a stuck landing until near the end of its lineup. Gymnasts took the smallest of steps, calling for score reductions from the judges. Despite the tight judging, Rodriguez won the vault with a score of 9.925.

"Overall, things are coming along, but we still need to get those landings," head coach Tanya Chaplin said. "We really need to start sticking those things. Some of the performances are beautiful up there, but if you just take that step you are giving them that tenth. That is five-tenths across the board if everyone takes a step and that is a huge amount of points that we can add to our score."

On the next event, OSU fans were treated to a glimpse of a 2008 Olympian from Australia: Olivia Vivian. Dealing with injuries much of the year and unable to compete in the Orange and Black Intersquad due to the NCAA, Vivian made her Gill Coliseum debut against UCLA. Vivian started things off with a 9.750 on an event where the tight judging began to show.

Following Vivian was junior Laura-Ann Chong, who scored a 9.850 on the event for Oregon State's high score. Vivian's score needed to be used by the Beavers because Rodriguez fell during her routine to post a 9.100.

Continued...

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