We knew we had some talented freshmen coming in and a seasoned senior group, so I think for the coaching staff we knew there were exciting possibilities for what could happen this season. – Utah co-head coach Megan Marsden
SALT LAKE CITY — It’s safe to say the Utah gymnastics team has closed one era and started another. Utah finished 2015 as the runner-up to a favored Florida team in the NCAA championships by a 0.05 margin. But as shocking as the finish was to some, considering many wrote Utah off after senior all-arounder Tory Wilson was lost to injury at the Pac-12 championships in March and Utah qualified with the lowest regional score for the championships, it was what came after the championships that was even more shocking.
Co-head coach Greg Marsden announced he was retiring from the program he had coached since its inception 40 years ago. The loss of Marsden will be felt across women’s gymnastics since he's been the sport’s visionary and most successful coach with a 1,048-208-8 record and 10 national championships. His last season will go down as another successful one.
Utah repeated as Pac-12 champions and recorded only one regular season loss. It compiled three of its best scores in the program’s history with all three topping the 198.0 mark. The Red Rocks’ second-place finish at the NCAAs marked their best effort since they were second in 2008. Utah also broke its own — and the NCAA’s gymnastics season — record for attendance average with 14,950 fans per meet, and the Huntsman Center single event attendance record with 16,019 fans.
“We knew we had some talented freshmen coming in and a seasoned senior group, so I think for the coaching staff we knew there were exciting possibilities for what could happen this season,” said co-head coach Megan Marsden. “But everything depended on how the team would mesh and bond, and the group dynamics of that. We couldn’t have had a better scenario in that regard.”
Senior Georgia Dabritz concluded her career at Utah in stellar fashion. Dabritz was the Pac-12 all-around champion, and Gymnast and Scholar-Athlete of the Year. She won every event at the Red Rocks’ Regional. She received the AAI award, which recognizes the top senior gymnast in the country. Dabritz closed out her season in brilliant fashion as she hit 10.0s on the bars in the NCAA semifinal and Super Six — becoming the first gymnast to hit back-to-back perfect scores on the apparatus at the championships — and then won the individual bars title the final day of the championships.
Dabritz also won the Pac-12 floor title, and fellow seniors Wilson (vault) and Corrie Lothrop (bars) joined her with league titles. Wilson recorded a 10.0 on her vault and was making her final appearance in the Huntsman Center when she ruptured her right Achilles and fractured her left foot on her floor routine. The injury was an unfitting ending to a great career for Wilson that included the 2014 Pac-12 all-around title. Lothrop won the league’s all-around title in 2012, and also compiled an outstanding career. Becky Tutka was another standout with the senior class, especially on floor where she concluded her career with a 9.925 in the Super Six. All four of Utah’s seniors were All-Americans and will be hugely missed for their talent and leadership.
“I feel like the senior class, each in their own way, took on their weakness and improved those throughout their career,” said Megan Marsden. “They also provided leadership when we needed it, and I hope those under them learned from that because that will be a huge benefit to our future.”
Despite the loss of the seniors, Utah has a talented group returning including freshman All-American Kari Lee, who dazzled throughout the year on vault, beam and floor. Also returning are Baely Rowe, Tiffani Lewis and Kailah Delaney, who will all battle to be in 3-4 events.
Megan Marsden is staying on board as co-head coach for a seventh season, and will be joined by Tom Farden, who spent the past five seasons as Utah’s assistant coach. Joining the duo is former Utah gymnast Meredith King Paulicivic. Megan Marsden and Paulicivic both won national championships with Utah as gymnasts.
Highlighting the incoming freshmen for the 2015-16 season is Sabrina Schwab, a Senior Elite qualifier from Lucas, Texas. Joining Schwab are three Junior Olympic qualifiers in Shannon McNatt (Houston, Texas), MaKenna Merrell (Pleasant Grove, Utah) and Erika Muhaw (Montville, N.J.).