BYU's women's gym team scored its best of the season (194.175) and senior Nanette Walker broke the BYU all-around record by .2, scoring (39.45), beating her own personal best by .35 Saturday night at Utah's Huntsman Center.
That said, it couldn't have been a bigger night for the Utes.With 20 years' worth of Ute legends in the stands for a reunion night, the old watched the now of Utah gymnastics break two NCAA records and score the program's first perfect 10s - four of them, one in each event - since 1993 as the women in red scored a school-record 197.875, just .125 off Georgia's NCAA record of 198 set two years ago when scoring was more loose.
And with Kristen Kenoyer Woodland, the former Ute NCAA all-around record-holder (39.75) among the 51 legends watching, senior Suzanne Metz not only scored the first two 10s of her career in her final home meet but also elevated the NCAA record to 39.95.
Metz scored no lower than 9.975 (bars, beam). The only possible better score is 10, which she hit the first and the last times she touched the floor, on vault and on floor exercise.
Junior Sandy Woolsey had a 10 on bars and freshman Traci Sommer one on beam.
"It seems like every year we find a way to write a different storybook ending," said coach Greg Marsden. Last year, with the NCAA finals on the same floor, Utah went from third on the first day to its ninth national championship with its highest championship score, 196.4. The Utah record was 197.60.
"I'm really happy for Suz," said Marsden. "It would have been a shame if she'd gone her career without (a 10)."
Metz, the stoic one who never lets things get to her, broke down twice Saturday - when she and Aimee Trepanier were honored on Senior Night and again when, while doing her 10.0 floor routine she saw Megan Caudle look emotional. Metz finished and began crying. "It's very final," she said of her last time in front of most Ute fans. "The fans mean so much to me," she said.
Twenty-two of her biggest fans were seated together - her family came from all over the country to see what turned out to be the best meet any NCAA gymnast has ever had.
Metz was sad to break Kenoyer's record. "She's such an idol in my eyes," Metz said, adding Missy Marlowe as well. "I don't put myself on that level," said Metz, who hasn't missed a routine or scored below 39.20 this season.
"This is really the Olympics of my life," she said, thinking of Olympian Marlowe.
It was a big night for Trepanier, too. She suffered a bulged spinal disc on the first day of practice last fall, and was told she might never compete again. (Metz was told the same thing as a freshman when she injured a foot.) Trepanier came back, as Metz did, and Saturday was Trepanier's first all-around of '95. She'd been doing two events only. Saturday, she got 9.7 on vault, 9.9 on bars, 9.925 on beam and 9.975 on floor - finishing with her trademark billboard pose - for 39.50, the second-best score of her career.
Trepanier already had two 10s earlier in her career and said she didn't mind not getting one on Senior Night. "It was Suzanne's night," she said.
Prior to the meet, Trepanier was one of just three Utes to ever score 10s (with Kenoyer and Marlowe), but one meet doubled the individuals with 10s, adding Metz, Woolsey and Sommer.
"I'm really grateful I could be here," Trepanier said, thinking about the bad back.
Starting on vault, "I was scared . . . I felt a little happier after vault. It's scary for me," she said.
"No one except she and I know how frightened she was," said Marsden. "Aimee was phenomenal tonight."
As were the Utes.
"No one ever flickered or blinked an eye," said Trepanier, who hid her Senior-Night tears in the darkness of the arena during the ceremonies.
Marsden was glad the Ute alumni, some of whom had never seen a meet in the Huntsman Center, could witness some of the program's finest moments. "For them to be here, part of this, made it all the more special," he said.
Utah also set an NCAA beam-team record (49.65, breaking Georgia's 49.45) on Sommer's 10, Megan Caudle's career-high-tying 9.925, Metz's career-best 9.975, Trepanier's career-second-best 9.925 and Alysa Frenz's season-high 9.825.
BYU had its season-best vault (48.55) and best team total of the year despite counting a bar fall. Walker started her meet with 9.85 on bars, then got 9.9 on vault, 9.95 on floor and 9.85 to finish her life competition in Utah on beam.
"What's weird about it," said Walker, "is I had no idea. I had forgotten the scores. I don't know where I was - on Cloud Nine."
"She didn't come in the kind of gymnast who could do that," said coach Brad Cattermole. Walker was an event specialist as a freshman. She became BYU's most consistent all-arounder ever, and now she's the record-holder, too. "She went out a gymnast who could do that," he said.
BYU got lost in Utah Uphoria, but Cattermole said it was good to experience a clamorous crowd with regionals and NCAAs yet to go. "I look forward to meets that put a little pressure on you," he said.
The Utes, who had dropped to the No. 3 ranking in the NCAA, put pressure on the rest of the NCAA with their legendary night.