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Either they let it slip away or it was taken away from them.

Any way you look at it, the members of the No. 2 UCLA gymnastics team (10-3) suffered an upset at the hands of No. 8 Georgia (11-4). The Bruins finished second in a tri-meet, which also included No. 17 Arizona (10-7), on Sunday at Pauley Pavilion.

And it was in the meet’s third rotation, when UCLA was on the beam, that it took a drastic turn. While the Bruins appeared on their way to an easy victory over their competitors, the beam judges had other plans.

Having amassed high marks in its previous two rotations, UCLA produced low scores on the beam, despite any significant errors. Sophomore Ashley Peckett started the rotation with a solid performance that earned a 9.5. The next two performances didn’t crack 9.675, and when the rotation was over, the highest score was Bruin senior Kristen Maloney’s mark of 9.825.

“We’re a subjective sport,” UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field said. “The judges judge based on what they see.

“It’s fair to say that all three coaches at the meet were confused with the scores,” she said.

The gymnasts shared those sentiments.

“There weren’t any major problems on the beam really,” Peckett said. “I don’t know what happened.”

After getting off to a strong start, the way the meet ended threw the Bruins off guard.

Opening the meet on vault, UCLA gymnasts progressively increased their scores during the team’s six performances on the apparatus. Starting with senior Christie Tedmon’s 9.7, the Bruins would end the rotation on Maloney’s 9.925. After the first rotation, UCLA had built a comfortable half-point lead over second-place Arizona.

Moving to the bars for the second rotation, UCLA found continued success. Maloney’s strong score of 9.9 was followed by freshman Tasha Schwikert’s 9.950, which was the highest mark of the night for any performance. By the end of the second rotation, UCLA still found itself in first place with a .6 lead over second-place Georgia.

But with UCLA scores plummeting during the third rotation, Georgia took advantage, posting a high vault score of 49.325 to UCLA’s 48.375 on the beam. After leading comfortably through half of the meet, the Bruins found themselves facing a .35 deficit with one rotation left.

UCLA took to the floor, hoping to score well enough to pull out the win. Unfortunately for the Bruins, their first four performances failed to break the 9.775 mark. While Maloney and Tasha Schwikert finished the rotation with 9.9 and 9.95 respectively, the Bruins had already fallen out of contention as Georgia won the meet with a score of 196.5 to UCLA’s 196.1 and Arizona’s 193.625.

Despite losing the meet in a questionable fashion, the Bruins were still pleased with what they had done.

“I was really pleased with our performance,” Kondos Field said. “We didn’t hold back and we were gutsy.”

“It was disappointing to lose,” Peckett said. “Still, we don’t have any regrets because overall we did well.”