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Casey Campbell | Gazette-Times
Oregon State’s Jami Lanz jumps high in the air with joy after finishing her floor routine on Friday during the Beavers’ dual meet against UCLA. The Beavers won 196.650-196.375 and Lanz won the all-around with a 39.550. |
Oregon State overtakes Bruins on final rotation
By Kevin Hampton
Gazette-Times reporter
When Mandi Rodriguez slipped off beam and had to take a 9.225, she was a little frustrated.
Instead of losing focus on floor, Rodriguez nailed her routine to score a 9.925. When Kera Bolen and Jami Lanz scored 9.900s and Tasha Smith held on for a 9.775 after stepping out, the No. 16 Beavers put together a 49.275 on the floor to pass the seventh-ranked Bruins on the final rotation and take a 196.650-196.375 Pacific-10 Conference win before 3,086 fans at Gill Coliseum.
It was OSU’s first win over UCLA since 2003.
“As soon as Mandi stuck her double Arabian front, that changed the momentum of the rest of the lineup,” OSU coach Tanya Chaplin said. “It was amazing. It just gave that extra spark, that extra energy. I think it motivated the rest of the team and they did a great job.”
Although Rodriguez, Bolen and Lanz put the Beavers in position to win, it was Smith’s performance that put them over the top.
Smith knew there was a 10th of a point deduction coming, but she held together.
“KB and Jami came back with great performances and Tasha didn’t let her out of bounds rattle her,” Chaplin said. “She finished even stronger by the end of her performance than she started, which was really positive to see because without that performance there we wouldn’t have the score that we had.”
It was the second score of 9.900 or better in the meet for Rodriguez, who scored a 9.900 on vault. She has had a 9.900 for three meets in a row.
“Every week in training I’ve just tried to be as consistent as possible,” Rodriguez said. “Right now I’m just working on sticks and hoping I can improve my score, instead of remaining at 9.900, I’m trying to go 9.925, 9.950. I’m just trying to be consistent but upgrade a little bit.”
It was a particularly strong performance for the Beavers after suffering seven falls in a meet at Stanford last week.
Lanz won the all-around with a 39.550, scoring 9.900s on bars, beam and floor and a 9.850 on vault. She said the Beavers wanted the win.
“We all had a common goal and we wanted to beat UCLA. That was one of our goals and we did it,” Lanz said. “Now we’re going to have to go into the gym and pick up and start where we left off and keep building on our score.
“We have three travel meets next so we’re on the road for quite some time and I think this will be a good starting point for the next three weeks because it’s going to be long, it’s going to be tough, but we’re going to have to come back to this meet. We want to beat this score when we’re on the road.”
The Beavers stayed within striking distance of the Bruins all evening. They scored 49.100 on bars and vault, then cut into UCLA’s midway lead with a 49.175 on beam as Brooke Barclay scored a 9.850 and Laura-Ann Chong and Smith added 9.825s.
Yuki Lamb had a 9.875 on vault.
The meet was particularly special for Rodriguez, who has several friends on the UCLA team. She said she was able to talk to Ashley Jenkins and Michelle Selesky.
“It was great considering we haven’t seen each other since we left for school in September,” Rodriguez said. “It was good to catch up and see how everyone was doing.”
She said the win should give the Beavers a boost going into the rest of the schedule.
“It’s great,” she said. “It gives us a lot of confidence and a self-esteem boost showing we really are as good as nationally-ranked teams.”
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