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UCLA freshmen draw on their elite gymnastics roots to help Bruins push for championships

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UCLA freshmen draw on their elite gymnastics roots to help Bruins push for championships

After sustaining a foot injury on her balance beam routine during a quad meet on Feb. 27 against Maryland, Ohio State and Iowa, Katelyn Rosen was sidelined for the rest of the competition. With the Big Ten title on the line, Bruins coach Janelle McDonald trusted one of the youngest athletes on her roster.

Freshman Nola Matthews was slotted into the floor rotation to replace the injured gymnast.

Matthews took over the leadoff position, but it did not faze her. She was ready to help UCLA secure its second consecutive regular-season Big Ten title.

“Nola had an opportunity to go out [and compete the weekend before] on floor, so I think that really prepared her to feel ready for that,” McDonald said after the win.

UCLA freshman Ashlee Sullivan competes on the vault during the Big Fours tournament at Pauley Pavilion on Feb. 27.

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(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)

Throughout their undefeated Big Ten season, the Bruins’ freshmen have established themselves as a cornerstone of the team. Ashlee Sullivan and Tiana Sumanasekera have each earned three Big Ten freshman of the week awards.

Matthews is averaging a 9.860 on bars and a 9.750 on floor. Jordis Eichman has made the most of her limited opportunities, averaging 9.805 on the balance beam and 9.750 on vault.

“The freshmen are contributing a lot for us,” McDonald said.

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Before competing in NCAA competition, they had already competed on the elite stage, the highest level of competitive gymnastics that includes the Olympics.

When associate head coach BJ Das approached Matthews to tell her to be ready, the freshman stepped up without hesitation, a skill she worked on during elite competition.

“She’s the type of athlete that has to work to get some skills and to keep them,” said Cleo Washington, who coached Matthews’ elite team, Airborne. “That’s what I like about her, she understands hard work, she understands the grind, and she’s not afraid of that.”

When Washington first met Matthews, she was self-deprecating. Rather than defining herself by her accomplishments, she focused on her mistakes.

As her gymnastics improved, so did her self value, which has helped develop her into an athlete UCLA can trust in big moments.

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UCLA freshman Nola Matthews gets height on her dismount from the balance beam during a meet against Nebraska.

UCLA freshman Nola Matthews gets height on her dismount from the balance beam during a meet against Nebraska at Pauley Pavilion on Jan. 17.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

“[She’s] extremely hardworking, has gotten a lot of resilience out of this sport, a lot of grit,” Washington said. “She’s one of the toughest athletes I’ve ever coached.”

Following Matthews on floor during the Bruins’ big quad meet was Sumanasekera, who posted 9.875, adding to her fifth place all-around performance.

Since Week 2 of the season, Sumanasekera has competed in every event. She has finished second in the all-around behind teammate Jordan Chiles three times. Sumanasekera is the highest nationally ranked freshmen at No. 22, with a National Qualifying Score of 39.375.

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In elite competition, Sumanasekera and Eichman were teammates. Their coach at World Champions, Cécile Canqueteau-Landi, knew they would both have immediate success at the college level from the moment she started coaching them.

“You’re only able to be successful and healthy if you’re doing everything you can in the gym and outside the gym,” she said. “[They] learned how to manage their time and their recovery and their training.”

Canqueteau-Landi misses coaching them, but she is excited to see them succeed.

UCLA gymnast Tiana Sumanasekera competes on the beam during the Big Fours meet held at Pauley Pavilion on Feb. 27.

UCLA gymnast Tiana Sumanasekera competes on the beam during the Big Fours meet held at Pauley Pavilion on Feb. 27.

(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)

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“They’re always willing to do more and they also have a really good sense of humor, it’s always easier to work with athletes that want to laugh and don’t take themselves too seriously,” she said.

Canqueteau-Landi is the head coach at the University of Georgia and there is a chance she could reunite with her former athletes during the national championships if both teams advance.

“You want the student athletes to succeed because we all know how hard it is to be one,” she said. “But when it’s your former athlete, you want more for them.”

Following Sumanasekera in the floor exercise was Sullivan, whose performance earned her a 9.900, her second-highest mark in that event.

Throughout the season, she’s consistently participated on the vault, uneven bars and the floor exercise, averaging above 9.850 in all three of the events. She’s competed in the all-around twice, earning a season high of 39.325 against Stanford in March.

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During their final meet of the regular season, Sullivan earned event specialist of the week honors after winning vault with a 9.975 and earning two 9.900s during the Bruins’ victory over Utah.

While training with coach Marnie Futch at Metroplex Gymnastics, Sullivan tested herself to see what she was capable of.

“I think she even surprised herself with how much she was able to accomplish last season in the elite world,” Futch added.

After clinching the Big Ten regular-season title, UCLA will compete in the Big Ten championship meet Saturday, where the freshmen class will show its skills for the first time at the college postseason level.

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Trump admin says SJSU now faces ‘impending enforcement’ for transgender volleyball scandal conflict

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Trump admin says SJSU now faces ‘impending enforcement’ for transgender volleyball scandal conflict

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FIRST ON FOX: President Donald Trump’s Department of Education said it has notified San Jose State University (SJSU) that it faces “impending enforcement action” for its “refusal to comply with Title IX.” 

SJSU and the California State University (CSU) system filed a lawsuit earlier in March to challenge an Education Department investigation that determined the university violated Title IX in its handling of a biological male transgender volleyball player on a women’s team from 2022-24. 

Now, the administration is cracking down against that resistance. 

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“We have provided SJSU with multiple opportunities to resolve its Title IX violations with common sense actions: separating male and female athletes based on their biological sex, keeping men out of women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, restoring rightfully-earned titles and accolades to female athletes, and apologizing to the women forced to forfeit competitions to protect themselves,” Kimberly Richey, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said in an announcement. 

“Yet, SJSU remains obstinate, choosing a radical ideology over safety, dignity, and fairness for its own students. With today’s action, the Department is putting the university on notice: comply with the law or risk losing its federal funding.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to SJSU and CSU for a response.

Brooke Slusser and Blaire Fleming of the San Jose State Spartans call a play against the Air Force Falcons on Oct. 19, 2024, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)

The conflict between Trump’s administration and the school stems back to the 2024 season, when a national controversy involving transgender player Blaire Fleming triggered an election-cycle media firestorm, all during Trump’s third White House campaign. 

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The Education Department’s investigation has claimed, “SJSU actively recruited and allowed a male to compete on the women’s indoor and beach volleyball teams and reportedly instructed members of the coaching staff not to tell the female players that the athlete was a male.” 

The investigation added that “on multiple occasions, the male athlete spiked the ball so forcefully that it knocked females on the opposing team to the ground.” 

One of the standout details of the investigation’s findings was that a female SJSU player “discovered that the male student had conspired to have a member of the opposing team spike her in the face during an upcoming match. SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected this female athlete to a Title IX complaint for reportedly ‘misgendering’ the male athlete when discussing this incident in online videos and interviews.” 

Former SJSU co-captain Brooke Slusser has included those allegations in her ongoing lawsuit against representatives of SJSU and CSU. 

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After SJSU and CSU announced they were suing the Trump administration to challenge the findings, Slusser, and other former NCAA players, came forward about their alleged experience during the scandal, and how it affected them, in recent interviews with Fox News Digital. 

Slusser, who shared an apartment with Fleming at SJSU without knowing the athlete’s birth sex, became the subject of viral debate after her interview reflecting on the experience sharing spaces with Fleming. 

“You find out you’re just chilling in a bed with a man that you have no idea about… I [was] unknowingly sharing a bed at that time with a man,” Slusser said, also alleging SJSU volleyball coach Todd Kress encouraged her to live in the same apartment as the trans teammate when another group of players was also looking for a final tenant. 

Former Utah State volleyball star Kaylie Ray told Fox News Digital that during matches against SJSU and Fleming in 2022 and ’23, before Fleming’s birth sex was known, she had teammates suffer finger injuries from the trans athlete’s spikes. 

“I had teammates who had seriously jammed their fingers, luckily not broken, but a handful of girls who had sustained minor injuries from the male player,” Ray said, adding, “We knew that if the male athlete had a phenomenal game, there was nothing we could do to stop that person.” 

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Ray’s Utah State team became one of five teams to forfeit at least one game to SJSU in 2024, seemingly in protest of Fleming. She says the forfeit impacted her team’s hopes of winning their fourth straight Mountain West championship. 

Meanwhile, the University of Wyoming forfeited two matches to SJSU in 2024. Former Cowgirls player Macey Boggs told Fox News Digital that the decisions to forfeit the games “permanently ruined” friendships among her teammates. 

“There were some of the girls who I really enjoyed, and we got along great, and then this situation came up, some conflict came up, and ultimately we went in separate directions because of that… as soon as we played in our last game, we all went in separate directions… it was hard to maintain those relationships,” Boggs said. 

SJSU was plagued by a separate Title IX violation in sports that it had to resolve with the Biden administration in 2021. The university ultimately came to a $1.6 million resolution with the Department of Justice in 2021. 

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The DOJ found that SJSU failed for more than a decade to respond adequately to reports of sexual harassment, including sexual assault, of female student-athletes by an athletic trainer then working at SJSU, beginning in 2009 when female student-athletes reported that the trainer subjected them to repeated, unwelcome sexual touching.

The department and SJSU entered into a comprehensive agreement to address the findings of the investigation, which began in June 2020 during Trump’s first term. 

Now, Trump’s current administration is giving the school 10 more days to comply with a series of resolution agreements to resolve the volleyball situation, or face enforcement action, including referral to the DOJ and termination of SJSU’s federal funding.

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‘I’m back’: Tiger Woods to play in TGL championship match with Masters status still unclear

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‘I’m back’: Tiger Woods to play in TGL championship match with Masters status still unclear

Some major Tiger Woods news broke Monday night.

It had nothing to do with the Masters — not directly anyway.

The 50-year-old golfing legend will be playing competitively for the first time in more than a year as his Jupiter Links team competes against Los Angeles in the second match of the best-of-three TGL finals Tuesday night in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

TGL is a high-tech, indoor golf league that uses simulators and real surfaces, founded by Woods, Rory McIlroy and Mike McCarley in 2022. While a TGL match doesn’t present the same physical challenge as a PGA Tour event, the team event could serve as Woods’ first step toward playing at Augusta National on April 9-12.

Woods last played competitively March 4, 2025, in Jupiter’s final TGL match of that season. He missed all of the PGA season last year as he recovered from a 2024 back surgery and surgery in March 2025 for a ruptured Achilles tendon. Last fall, he underwent disk replacement surgery in his lower back.

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A five-time Masters winner, most recently in 2019, Woods is listed as a 2026 invitee on the tournament website but has yet to confirm his participation.

Last month at the Genesis Invitational, a reporter asked Woods if the Masters was “off the table” for him this year. Woods answered simply, “No.”

In the opening match of the TGL finals Monday night, Jupiter lost 6-5, with Kevin Kisner narrowly missing a birdie chip from 20 feet that would have won the match. Woods was on hand as a team captain and supporter, roles he has served all season.

After the match, Woods told reporters he felt bad for his players — Tom Kim, Max Homa and Kisner — but expressed optimism that Jupiter could still come back and claim the title. If Jupiter wins Match 2, a third match will take place immediately afterward to determine the TGL champion.

“We have possibly two more matches,” Woods said. “We’re not out of this.”

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Woods didn’t mention the possibility of placing himself in the next day’s lineup. After the news conference, however, TGL posted a graphic on X that showed what appears to be Woods’ torso and the words “He’s back,” along with the viewing information for Tuesday’s match.

Moments later, Jupiter Links posted a graphic on X that featured a photo of Woods and the quote, “I’m back.”

Woods will be replacing Kisner in the lineup for at least Match 2. It is unclear if Woods would take part in a possible third match.

Last week, after Jupiter clinched a spot in the finals, Woods told reporters he has been trying to play all season “but it just hasn’t worked out that way.” He added that the players had done well without him and implied that he didn’t foresee any changes ahead of the finals.

“I really don’t want to screw up the lineup,” Woods added. “I just want these guys to keep playing.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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John Daly calls himself a ‘jacka–‘ after falling down desert hill during tournament

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John Daly calls himself a ‘jacka–‘ after falling down desert hill during tournament

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Golf great John Daly shared a hilarious moment that may have been more serious after watching a video he posted on social media, calling himself a “jacka–” in the process. 

Daly was in desert terrain at the La Paloma Country Club for the Cologuard Classic, when he was trying to hit a shot onto a green when he lost his footing.

As he tried to gain traction in the sand, Daly’s feet fell from under him, and he slid down a long desert hill. Multiple people got involved, voluntarily jumping down the hill to see if Daly was all right. 

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John Daly of the United States plays a tee shot on the first hole during the second round of the Cologuard Classic 2026 at La Paloma Country Club on March 21, 2026, in Tucson, Arizona. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Daly left unscathed, but he did enjoy putting the theme music to the “Jackass” franchise over the video to share to the masses. 

“Bellyfloppin’ in the desert,” Daly captioned the video, while shouting out his caddie, Joel Cooley, who sprang to action to see if his partner was doing fine at the bottom of the hill. 

“On today’s episode of ‘jacka**’” was also seen on top of the video. 

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While he doesn’t usually show off his bellyflopping, Daly remains a key figure in golf.

John Daly of the United States plays his second shot on the ninth hole during the first round of the Cologuard Classic 2026 at La Paloma Country Club on March 20, 2026, in Tucson, Arizona. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

He spends most of his time on the course for the Champions Tour, which is former PGA Tour players 50 years and older. His most recent round came on Sunday, where he finished tied for 29th with a 6-under tournament in the Cologuard Classic. 

Daly was just named the 2026 Ambassador of Golf Award honoree ahead of the Kaulig Companies Championship at the signature Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. The award recognizes those making an impact on the course as well as in their communities off the course. 

“I’ve always loved this game and what it’s given me,” he said in a press release for the award. “Golf has taken me places I never imagined and introduced me to incredible people along the way. To be recognized with the Ambassador of Golf Award is truly an honor, and I’m proud to support the meaningful work being done here in Northeast Ohio.”

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John Daly hits his tee shot on the second hole during the final round of the PNC Championship 2025 at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club on Dec. 21, 2025 in Orlando, Florida. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Daly’s impact on the sport is quite iconic, whether it’s his monstrous drives from the tee box, winning the 1991 PGA Championship as the ninth alternate in the field, or taking home The Open Championship in 1995 at St. Andrews, forever marking himself as a multi-time major winner. 

His larger-than-life personality has always been on display, even today in silly moments like these on and off the course. 

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