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Kyla Ross wins national championships on uneven bars, beam

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Kyla Ross claimed two individual national titles on Friday at the NCAA National Championships in St. Louis, winning UCLA’s third-straight national title on beam and tying for the school’s first on uneven bars since 2008.

The freshman added the collegiate titles to her already impressive gymnastics resume that includes team gold medals in the 2012 Olympics and the 2014 world championships. She will try to add another championship Saturday with the Bruins as UCLA qualified for the national finals with a second-place finish in its semifinal.

UCLA’s 197.5000 team score ranked fifth among the teams advancing to the Saturday’s Super Six.

“I just woke up and really wanted to have fun this last competition,” Ross told Pac-12 Networks after the meet. “To come out and start so strong on bars, I just felt the energy right away and carried it throughout the whole meet.”

UCLA opened its meet on bars and Ross’ 9.95 score survived the entire day to finish in a six-way tie for the national title. She kept the momentum going on beam with a 9.9625 that secured UCLA’s NCAA three-peat on the event, following Samantha Peszek in 2015 and Danusia Francis in 2016.

On Saturday, the Bruins will try to win their first NCAA title as a team since 2010 and seventh overall. LSU, which qualified with a 198.2750 semifinal score leads the group, followed by Florida (197.8125), defending national champion Oklahoma (197.7250) and Alabama (197.6000). Utah rounds out the Super Six with its 197.0500 semifinal score.

The competition starts at 6 p.m. PT on ESPNU.