The weight of expectations hung on Katelyn Rosen’s shoulders.
Rosen was fresh off a freshman campaign at UCLA in which she earned All Pac-12 honors, often competed in the all-around and filled a void while Jordan Chiles prepared for the Paris Olympics, but January tested her like never before.
A gymnast who proudly embodies a character while she competes — like her “Dark Witch” persona — in order to focus in and perform in the moment, Rosen hit a roadblock, unable to break through on two of her signature events.
“I am someone who’s gonna spiral,” said Rosen, now a sophomore with the Bruins, who are seeded fifth in the second round of NCAA regionals in Salt Lake City that begins Thursday at noon PT.
Uncharacteristic routine hiccups pushed Rosen out of UCLA’s lineups for the first time. First, she underrotated a back layout 1.5 into a front tuck on her final floor routine pass, almost falling to the floor in Maryland and securing a large score deduction. A week later, in the Bruins’ home debut against Illinois, she dismounted early during a beam routine, scoring below a 9 for the first time in her career.
Rosen, cheerful, saluted the judges after that beam routine. Seconds later, her smile sank. Rosen buried herself into assistant coach Lacy Dagen’s arms. The sophomore slump, that so many of her teammates had warned her about, had begun, 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,” said Rosen, who explained she struggled with mental health during the season. “After having such a phenomenal, dream-type freshman year, there were a lot of expectations put on me, and usually I welcome those expectations, and I thrive under that sort of pressure, but for whatever reason this year, it kind of cracked me a bit.”
Coach Janelle McDonald stripped Rosen’s gym preparation back to the basics. The coach stressed to Rosen — and other Bruin athletes — that negative social media commentary can only hurt, and to choose to focus on what individuals within the “Bruin bubble” share for feedback.
Rosen worked back, week by week, featuring exhibitions at many of UCLA’s meets through February and March, away from the pressure of competing in the lineups. The week before the Big Ten Championships — in which UCLA competed in Salt Lake City against Utah — proved vital for the Texas-born gymnast.
In exhibition routines, Rosen scored 9.8 or higher in balance beam, uneven bars and floor exercise. For Rosen, this was not only a signal to herself that she was back and ready to compete, but for McDonald too.
“I felt the moment I stepped in, on bars, to raise my hands again to compete,” Rosen said, “I felt like I was back in my zone. I felt the flow.”
When UCLA won the Big Ten Championships meet on March 22, scoring a rousing 198.450 — the highest score in the conference’s championship history and the fourth-best score in program history — it was Rosen who rejoined the lineup for competitive routines for the first time in almost two months.
It was Rosen who carried her teammates on her shoulders when the Bruins needed it the most. After her teammate Emily Lee, a senior, had a rare mishap on beam, Rosen stepped in and recorded a 9.925, making the podium as the Bruins dropped Lee’s score.
“She had a rocky first couple meets, and then I think that kind of derailed her belief in herself that she could do it,” Lee said, referring to Rosen’s early-season struggles. “What’s nice about situations like that is that you have teammates that can come in and step up and have your back, and that’s what we did for Kate all season.”
Lee added: “It’s nice how we transitioned to this postseason. Now she has my back, right?”
Rosen, McDonald said, is squarely competing for spots in the lineup before Thursday’s regional meet against No. 12 seed Minnesota and unseeded Southern Utah and Boise State. And UCLA has the depth to potentially make a run to Fort Worth for nationals. Only Florida, Oklahoma and LSU have scored above UCLA’s Big Ten Championships score this season.
The Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics Assn. named six Bruins as All Americans (most of any program), with Chiles earning a team-high three first-team honors on vault, uneven bars and floor exercise. Frida Esparza (uneven bars), graduate student Brooklyn Moors (floor) and Emma Malabuyo (beam) also earned first-team recognition.
“Heading into regionals, it’s really just maintaining that mindset, taking the confidence with us, and just continuing to dial in the little details to make sure that we show up and we’re ready for two days of competition and to be really intentional and perform our best when our best is needed,” McDonald said.
For Rosen, after a season of ups and down, she said she’s ready for what NCAA postseason competition has to offer after the Bruins fell short in the second round of the Berkeley regional a year ago.
“When we realized we had the highest team score of any team competing at conference championships that weekend, when we saw that, we were like, ‘We’re gonna win nationals, guys, there’s no way we don’t,’” Rosen said. “I would say I’ve never been this confident in a single team in my life, and we’re so fired up for this weekend.”