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Senior Kristen Maloney will compete in Pauley Pavilion for the last time on Sunday.

Pauley Pavilion will be full of goodbyes and welcome-backs this Sunday as the No. 4 UCLA gymnastics team (10-3) squares off against No. 6 Florida (10-2) in what is sure to be a highly emotional dual meet.

With only two regular-season meets remaining before postseason competition, this weekend will mark the final time UCLA seniors Kristen Maloney, Christie Tedmon and Kisha Auld perform on the Pauley Pavilion floor.

“I’m going to go in there and savor the moment,” Maloney said. “I want to be able to enjoy competing in Pauley for the last time.”

And while the team’s three seniors bid farewell, two former Bruins will make their return to UCLA.

Florida coach Rhonda Faehn was a UCLA All-American gymnast serving under the tutelage of current UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field from 1990-1992. Faehn’s assistant coach, Randy Lane, served as an assistant coach to Kondos Field from 1992-1994 and again from 1998-2001. During his second stint as UCLA’s assistant coach, Lane was part of two of the Bruins’ NCAA Championships and was named the National Assistant Coach of the Year in 2000.

“It will be exciting to face them,” Kondos Field said of her former pupils. “They’re family, and it will definitely be a homecoming.”

If the meet wasn’t already sufficiently filled with enticing subplots, Sunday will also mark junior Kate Richardson’s return to competition after sitting out the last meet due to a functional rupture of the ulnar collateral ligament in her right thumb.

“We’re hopeful she can do beam and she might do vault and floor, but I don’t know yet,” Kondos Field said.

While Richardson’s apparatus status is up in the air, one certainty is that her services will be sorely needed against a stacked Florida team that has been hard to beat this season.

While the Bruins hold a 6-1 all-time record over the Gators, Florida’s whopping seven All-American gymnasts have built a juggernaut this year. Led by sophomore Chantelle Tousek, sister of former UCLA All-American Yvonne Tousek, this team figures to provide the Bruins with a stiffer test than in past years. Because both teams will be contending to reach the Super Six at the NCAA Championships at the end of this season, the Bruins are placing added emphasis on excelling on Sunday.

“I think it’s very important for us to do well,” Kondos Field said. “If we hit our routines well, the way we’ve been doing in practice, we should win.”