University of Washington
UCLA
No. 22 Huskies Knock Off No. 1 UCLA At Home
January 27, 2012 | Gymnastics
Jan. 27, 2012
SEATTLE - The No. 22-ranked UW gymnastics team pulled a huge upset in its first home meet of 2012, knocking off undefeated and No. 1 UCLA 195.350-194.600. The Huskies led after every rotation and beat the Bruins for just the third time in school history and first since 2004.
This is the second-best score of the season for the Huskies who nearly pulled an upset over Stanford last weekend.
It was a great crowd of over 1,600 for the first home meet that were cheering loudly when UW nailed its floor routines and UCLA was falling on beam and people were starting to think the Huskies just might've pulled off the upset. Once the individual and all-around winners were announced and it was announced that UW had indeed won, the GymDawgs got a standing ovation.
"We've been working on this positive energy and staying focused and just doing our hits and our routines," said head coach Joanne Bowers. "We're not worrying about scores and letting it take care of itself. I do think we gained a lot of confidence, as a team, last week at Stanford. We don't watch the other team, we don't worry about the things we can't control. All we're concentrating on is each other and hitting our routines and then we say 'We'll see what happens'. Hopefully good things will happen. At the end of the meet, the girls didn't even know we had won. They're focused on themselves and hitting their routines and then it's like, all of a sudden, good things happen."
Senior Ruby Engreitz (Kirkland, Wash.) set a new career-high on the floor, winning the event with a 9.875. Engreitz also won the all-around with a 39.325 and the bars with a 9.85, both season-highs. She set season-highs on every event, including a 9.8 on vault and a 9.8 on beam.
Like Bowers said, Engreitz echoed the fact that they didn't know they won. Once they found out, "Oh my gosh, it was amazing. For us to upset the No. 1 team in the country was huge. I don't know if that has happened in recent history for this program. So that was really exciting."
Sophomore Aliza Vaccher (Eugene, Ore.) set a season-high on floor with a 9.725 and finished second in the all-around with a 38.875.
Junior Lauren Rogers (Plains, Pa.) tied for second on vault with a 9.825.She also had a season-best on floor of 9.850.
Hatsune Akaogi (Cupertino, Calif.) finished third on beam with a 9.800 and performed on beam for the first time this season, posting a solid 9.75.
Junior Phoebe Tham (North Vancouver, B.C.) set season-highs on bars and floor.
The Huskies hit all of their routines on bars and beam. UW continues to improve its floor score with another season-best of 48.925.
UCLA was averaging a 196.775 on the year and hadn't scored a 194 since early last season.
The Huskies host 10th-ranked Oregon State on Feb. 3 at 7 p.m. at Alaska Airlines Arena.
