Aiming to capture their first national title since 2018, the UCLA gymnastics team qualified for Saturday’s NCAA championship final after a second-place finish in the semifinals today at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.
The No. 5 seed Bruins scored an overall 197.7375, finishing just 0.025 behind No. 4 Utah. Defending champions and top-seeded Louisiana State finished third, and No. 8 Michigan State was fourth.
The Bruins and Utah now advance to the team title competition on April 19, where they will join Oklahoma and Missouri, who beat out Florida and Alabama in today’s other semifinal competition. The top finisher among the four teams will be crowned national champion.
The meet will be broadcast live on ABC at 1 p.m. PT.
“I could not be more proud of this team,” said UCLA head coach Janelle McDonald. “They set out from day one to make something special happen, and to be headed to ‘Four on the Floor’ is everything we could ask for and hope for. But the job’s not done. We’ve got one more meet, and we’re going to come out swinging on Saturday.”
In today’s competition, the Bruins led early after scoring 49.5250 on the floor exercise in the first rotation, fell to third after a 49.2375 on the vault in rotation two, then used a 49.4250 on uneven bars in rotation three to climb back into first. UCLA’s 49.5500 on balance beam in the final rotation secured a second-place finish for the Bruins after Utah moved into first with a 49.6500 on uneven bars.
► Read more about the competition on the UCLA Athletics website.
Jordan Chiles takes over on bars with a 9.975 👀 @uclagymnastics#B1GWGym on ESPN2 📺 pic.twitter.com/wNkAWpMzYI
— Big Ten Gymnastics (@B1GGymnastics) April 18, 2025
Jordan Chiles and Brooklyn Moors win individual titles
Junior and Olympic gold medalist Jordan Chiles captured her second NCAA individual title in the uneven bars with a score of 9.9750, reclaiming the crown she won in 2023. It was the third overall individual title for Chiles, who also took the honors in the floor exercise in 2023. Graduate student Brooklyn Moors won her first-ever NCAA title with a score of 9.9625 on floor exercise. UCLA ranks first all-time with 44 NCAA individual titles.
“I might cry again,” Chiles told ESPN after the meet. “I believed in this team from the very beginning. There’s so much pride, so much joy, so much fun in the atmosphere. I knew this was our year.”
A storied history and a return to the finals
The Bruins, who have now advanced from an original field of 36 teams, have appeared in the NCAA gymnastics championship — which today includes both the eight-team semifinal and four-team final meets — 37 times in the 43 years of the competition. Their last trip to the final “Four on the Floor” competition was in 2019, when they finished third.
Just a year earlier, in 2018, the team captured its seventh NCAA championship, with their other titles coming in 2010, 2004, 2003, 2001, 2000 and 1997.
Below, relive the glory of that 2018 title with then–head coach Valorie Kondos Field and gymnast Peng-Peng Lee, who brought home the championship with a perfect 10 on the balance beam in the final routine of the meet.
