NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Championships : In Third Place, UCLA Qualifies for Team Event

Sophomore Chris Waller always leads off for UCLA, which in gymnastics is an honor roughly comparable to always batting ninth. The leadoff gymnast is not expected to do much more than raise expectations, creating scoring opportunities for those who follow him on each piece of apparatus.

But Thursday night, as defending champion UCLA was struggling to place at least third in the 10-team field and thus qualify for tonight’s NCAA team championship competition, Waller did more than raise expectations. Hitting on all six events, he was actually the top-scoring Bruin. He raised expectations and the Bruins.

Waller’s best score in the all-around this year had been 56.40. Thursday night, he scored 57.10, best on the team and 10th-best among all gymnasts. The Bruins might still have edged fourth-place Stanford without his performance, but you wouldn’t want to bet that way.

Otherwise, the finish of the top three teams was not altogether unexpected. Host Nebraska, which has been NCAA runner-up in each of the last three years, led all teams with 286.65. Top-ranked Illinois scored 285.70, and UCLA finished with 285.25. These three, starting from scratch, compete tonight for the team championship. The rest watch.

The Bruins were plagued by some opening-night jitters, apparently. David Moriel, still not all the way back after a bout with chicken pox, had a premature dismount on the parallel bars, UCLA’s first event. Then in the next event, Curtis Holdsworth left the high bar before he should have and scored a 9.30. It appeared to be a mounting disaster.

But the team steadied up thereafter, although Coach Art Shurlock marveled that “we had a break on every event except vault, which happens to be our weakest event.” That was cause for some tension, as UCLA was finishing the night on the vault while Stanford was on the floor.

“We had a lead of about 1.8 going into the last event,” Shurlock said, “but if we score 46 on vault and Stanford does 48 on the floor, that lead disappears.”

As it happened, UCLA finished with 46.90 on vault, its best this season, to keep ahead of Stanford. The Cardinal finished with 283.85, 1.40 out of it.

Tony Pineda, who is a member of the Mexican Olympic team (in 1984, and again for 1988) when he isn’t leading the Bruins, turned in another solid performance after coming back from shoulder surgery. In only his third meet since a biceps was repaired, ligaments were reattached and scar tissue cleaned out, he scored 56.95 to easily qualify for Sunday’s all-around competition. He placed 12th.

The top 24 all-around scorers, after Thursday night’s optional exercises, compete again Sunday night. Thursday night’s scores will be added to the scores after the compulsory exercises, meaning there will be some new faces this year. Defending all-around champion Tom Schlesinger has some ground to make up; he was sixth after the optionals. Last year’s runner-up, Nebraskan Kevin Davis, was fourth.

The all-around actually has the same international flavor as an Olympics, not a collegiate championship. Houston Baptist, the smallest Division I school in the country with 2,700 students, placed gymnasts first and third in the first half of the all-around competition. Alfonso Rodriguez, who leads with a 58.35 total, is a member of the 1988 Spanish Olympic team. Houston Baptist teammate Miguel Rubio, who is third behind Illinois’ David Zeddies, is also a member of Spain’s team.

Meanwhile, Ohio State’s Gil Pinto, adding to the foreign-student-exchange look of the championships, was fifth in the all-around. He’s on Brazil’s Olympic team.

Besides team qualifying and all-around qualifying, Thursday night’s competition also qualified eight gymnasts in each event to Sunday afternoon’s event finals. Some local qualifiers: David St. Pierre of UCLA in floor exercise, Pineda and Holdsworth of UCLA in pommel horse, Bill Barham of Cal State Fullerton on parallel bar, David Moriel of UCLA on high bar and Amir Kadury of Cal State Fullerton on high bar.