UCLA gymnast Katelyn Rosen transformed into a dark witch at the Big Ten Championships.
It happened when she mounted the balance beam and again when she stepped onto the podium for floor exercise.
“I like to tap into whatever character, whatever role I’m playing in the moment,” Rosen told reporters. “If I’m focusing on my artistry, and I’m focusing on the faces I’m making and making eye contact with the judges and the audience, that relieves a lot of pressure for me.”
Rosen is back. She conquered her confidence issues to shine at the Big Ten Championships – which UCLA won – in her first competitive routines since Jan. 25. She scored season highs in two events with a 9.925 on balance beam and a 9.875 on floor exercise.
Head coach Janelle McDonald doesn’t see Rosen coming out of the lineups any time soon, even with NCAA Regionals starting this week.
“She’s just such a competitor and she has so much experience under her belt,” McDonald told reporters. “She was just missing a little bit of that confidence earlier in the season. Now that she’s found it, we absolutely trust her to be in those lineups and to perform how she’s been training.”
The fifth-seeded Bruins travel to Salt Lake City to compete in the 1 p.m. afternoon session Friday against No. 12 seed Minnesota and unseeded Southern Utah and Boise State. The top two seeds will advance to Saturday’s NCAA Regional Final.
Rosen had a “phenomenal, dream-type” freshman season, as she put it. She was a three-time Pac-12 Freshman of the Week and earned Honorable Mention All-Pac-12 in the all-around. Her artistic floor routines and grace on balance beam earned her notoriety from the college gymnastics community and her fierce competitiveness made her a mainstay in UCLA’s lineups.
Some uncharacteristic mistakes in competition derailed the start of her sophomore season.
“I am someone who’s gonna spiral,” Rosen said. “If something goes wrong, I’m gonna overanalyze it from every single angle, and that usually takes me down into a dark place that I really don’t need to be.”
The high expectations that she had previously thrived in now seemed heavy. She stepped away from competing but never stopped training and had unrelenting support from her coaches and teammates all the while.
“We had a good conversation about kind of taking a step back,” McDonald said, “even going back to some basics and drills and things like that, and just putting kind of a pause on competition routines, because just trying to get those going again was where the confidence block was at.”
Rosen’s rebuild continued. She dressed for every meet, proudly wearing sparkling leotards and intricate hairstyles and cheering on her teammates the entire time.
The next step was exhibition routines. She started off with exhibitions on beam and floor during the Feb. 14 meet against Penn State in Pauley Pavilion. There was another exhibition on floor the week after that and three exhibitions on uneven bars, beam and floor in the Bruins’ final regular-season meet against Utah.
“I was able to have those exhibitions, and especially in a high-pressure, very loud arena that is the Utah arena,” Rosen said. “The moment I stepped in on bars to raise my hands again to compete, I felt I was back in my zone. I felt the flow. I was thriving under that energy. And ever since then, I’ve just been on the up.”
Heading back to Utah can give UCLA an edge in multiple ways. They’re familiar with the venue after competing in it for many seasons of Pac-12 gymnastics and its surrounding amenities, like the hotel that hosts them and the meals they’ll eat.
The rivalry with the Red Rocks also gives the Bruins a competitive spark. Utah will compete in the 7 p.m. evening session against No. 13 seed Stanford, Denver and the winner of the BYU/Utah State first-round matchup.
It’s likely that the Bruins will get another crack at their rivals in the regional finals.
“I feel like people either love it or they hate it, going against Utah,” Rosens said. “I’m somebody that loves it. I know the team is going to show up when we walk into that arena and for me at least, that victory is going to be a lot sweeter, having gone through what I did.”
NCAA Regionals
Who: No. 5 seed UCLA vs. No. 12 seed Minnesota, Southern Utah, Boise State
When: Noon Thursday
Where: Jon M. Huntsman Center, Salt Lake City
TV: ESPN+
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