Her nervousness came and went during her first meeting of her college career. Now the time has come UCLA freshman Nola Matthews focus on your workouts and daily routine.
“The way I train is the standard I need,” Matthews said, “so now I just need to bring that into competition.”
The UCLA women's gymnastics team sent four freshmen (Matthews, Tiana Sumanasekera, Ashley Sullivan And Jordis Eichmann) on the floor during their meeting against Washington, California and Oregon State on Saturday.
With three wins at the tournament in Washington, the Bruins prevailed. Big Ten Conference weekly awards, including Freshman of the Week honors for Sumanasekere after she placed second on beam and floor exercise.
“They have a lot of experience from being elite athletes and things like that,” coach Janelle McDonald said of her freshman class. “I think it will really bode well for their longevity and their NCAA careers.”
Their improvement was on full display Saturday, McDonald said. They were high school teenagers when they arrived in Westwood. But on the floor during their debut, they performed as young women in their own space.
“I’m really excited to see them continue to grow throughout the season and really see what they can do in competition,” she said.
The win made the Bruins the number one team in the country and they said they have nothing to worry about. Instead, they will simply focus on themselves.
“We're just going to focus on what we're doing: staying in this bubble, staying together, staying as a team,” Matthews said.
Leadership
When they first hit the floor, MacDonald noticed the freshmen's nervousness. Their performance was not perfect and they performed too intensely. Since it was their first meeting, their coach expected this, but what impressed her the most was their adjustments.
“We're going to face a lot of challenges throughout the year and we really need to be resilient in those moments and be able to turn the page and focus on what's next, which is really important to being a successful team,” MacDonald said.
The resilience they showed was bolstered by the leadership the newcomers received from Jordan Chiles and the rest of the returning members.
“I just thought Jordan did it phenomenally and our returners did it too,” McDonald said. “Those were the things I learned that I was really excited about.”
“They really took us all under their wing and were there for us, especially when we had bad days,” Matthews added.
The noise of the first place in the ranking
McDonald understands that the leadership qualities her returning team members will bring to the competition are key to the Bruins' success this season. For UCLA to maintain its No. 1 ranking, it needs to worry about what it can control, not outside noise.
“We're really focusing on what we can do to continue to improve and get better at our gymnastics and our connections with each other and how we perform for each other in the next competition,” she said. “You can’t always control your results, you can’t always control your ranking, but you can always control how you show up in each moment and how you prepare for those opportunities.”
Their next meeting will be against Oklahoma, Utah and Louisiana State on Saturday on national television. The lights will be bright, they will have a target behind them as the best program in the country, but they will drown out the noise by focusing on their work.
“We all just need to keep our heads down and keep doing what we’ve been doing,” Matthews said. “We've worked so hard in pre-season and I feel like we're in a really good situation.”
