Make that five straight conference championships for Utah gymnastics.
In its first year in the Big 12 Conference, Utah did what it had grown well accustomed to as a member of the Pac-12 Conference — it won the conference championship.
Led by Grace McCallum — the Big 12 Gymnast of the Year — and Avery Neff — Big 12 Newcomer of the Year — the Red Rocks ran away from the field Saturday night at the Maverik Center, beating second place Arizona by more than a point (197.775 to 196.675).
Denver finished third with a 196.400, followed by BYU (196.275), Arizona State (195.975), Iowa State (195.775) and West Virginia (194.875).
The Red Rocks were never seriously threatened as they led from start to finish, and a Utah gymnast won at least a share of the conference title on every event:
- Grace McCallum in the all-around and on vault.
- Makenna Smith on floor exercise and uneven bars.
- Ashley Glynn on vault.
- Avery Neff on beam.
- Ana Padurariu on beam.
Utah finished with the highest event score by any team on every event, tying its season-high score on beam.
It was nothing short of sheer dominance by the Red Rocks, dominance that left them smiling from ear to ear after winning yet another conference title.
“It feels really good,” Neff said with a huge smile.
Added Padurariu, who had lost multiple conference championship meets against Utah while competing at UCLA: “It is pretty great. I’ve been through the (NCAA) system for a few years and I’d never been a conference champion until this year. It is such an amazing team to do it with, with the heart behind the team. The whole heart (of this team) really showed today.”
Utah wasn’t perfect in victory, as complete as it was. The Red Rocks admittedly didn’t compete at well as they had at home against UCLA last week.
“Even though we’re still conference champions, I know that our whole team is still going to...know that we can do better,“ Neff said, “and I think it’s going to push us to do even better at regionals and nationals. I think you’re only going to see more come out of us.”
Truth be told, on Saturday night Utah didn’t need to be perfect, nor did the Red Rocks especially want to be. The time for peaking isn’t at the conference championships.
“We don’t want to be perfect yet,” Utah head coach Carly Dockendorf said. “You know, when it really counts, it’s going to be at national championships.”
Defining moment
For all intents and purposes, the conference championship was decided after the first rotation of the evening session Saturday.
Utah led the meet off with a fine effort on vault, a 49.325. It wasn’t the Red Rocks’ best performance, nor their worst, but after that first rotation, Utah held a lead of .15 over Arizona.
It wasn’t an insurmountable lead by any means, but vault has been the Red Rocks’ worst even this season. Leading after the first event — barring catastrophe — all but assured Utah would win the conference crown.
Catastrophe did end up threatening, though — on beam, Utah’s highest ranked event this season no less.
Midway through the beam rotation, Smith fell off the beam during her acro series. It was something of a shock, the first fall of her collegiate career.
Utah could have fallen apart after that. The Red Rocks had proven susceptible to that very thing early in the season when they collapsed on beam against Arizona State, and for a split second during McCallum’s routine it looked like they might.
But gritty routines by McCallum, Neff and Padurariu (each scored a 9.90 or better on beam) propelled Utah to a 49.600, officially closing the door on any sort of real challenge by Arizona, Denver or Arizona State.
“I was just so proud of the resilience in our beam lineup,“ Dockendorf said. ”Earlier this year, when we had a mistake, we didn’t come back nearly as strong as we did today.
“For all three of them to just focus on what their job was and not let Makenna’s routine affect their own performance, I just thought that really just showed the strength of those three women.”
Added McCallum: “I just wanted to go up there and approach my beam routine with confidence, because I’ve been doing that the whole year so why would I change it now? I learned so much from Arizona, where we just kind of crumbled, just knowing that this team is so strong on beam and one fall doesn’t define us, so going up there, being confident and doing our normal gymnastics is all we needed to do.”
Needs work
Utah still hasn’t competed at its peak yet this season, even with multiple scores above 198, and that was especially the case Saturday.
Across every event, Utah left tenths of a point out there. Again and again.
On vault, it was mostly landings. Sticks remains elusive for the Red Rocks, though they did get a great performance from Glynn — her best in months — and a very near stick from McCallum.
On bars, stuck landings were few and far between. In fact, other than Smith and Amelie Morgan, no other Red Rock was able to successfully find a stick on bars. Meaning Utah gave up nearly .5 of a point on landings on bars alone.
“We gave away some tenths (of a point) on the landings for sure,” Dockendorf said. “I know we’ll want to clean out for regionals and nationals.”
On beam, there was the aforementioned fall, plus a few noticeable balance checks.
And on floor, different Red Rocks weren’t as clean as they need to be with their leaps and/or didn’t have real control of the landings at the end of tumbling passes.
There wasn’t anything too egregious from routine to routine, but when added up it all meant that Utah left meaningful tenths out there, and they know it.
“I know I want to put a lot of work into (stuck landings), because I can stick it easy when there’s no pressure, and then when the pressure kicks in, I kind of overthink things a bit,” McCallum said. “I think (we need) to keep the momentum going from meet to meet, and go into the meets with a winning mentality from here on out.”
That’s encouraging
There was real reason for excitement Saturday, beyond Utah winning the conference crown.
Camie Winger once again was great on beam, earning a 9.925. The sophomore has now scored better than a 9.9 in consecutive meets, a midseason turnaround Utah desperately needed.
Glynn, as previously mentioned, competed the best vault she has in a while, and though she didn’t stick the landing, she was more under control than she’d been in any recent meet.
Padurariu competed the best she had in her time at Utah on beam, her 9.950 earning her a share of the Big 12 beam title. Making it all the more impressive? Prior to the UCLA meet she had been injured for multiple weeks and hadn’t trained nearly as much as she wanted. On the biggest stage so far this year, though, she was cool, calm and collected.
Ella Zirbes was a solid contributor throughout the meet, scoring a 9.85 or better on each of the three events she competed.
Morgan did the same on her two events — bars and beam.
And then there was Neff, who barely finished second in the all-around behind McCallum.
The freshman admitted she had nerves before and during the meet — “I definitely felt the pressure,” she said — but she didn’t show them once during competition, scoring a 9.825 or better on every event (she finished with a 39.500 in the all-around).
“I thrive off of pressure,” she said. “I think I kind of used it a bit too much to my advantage in some things. I had a little too much power in some things, but overall, I’m pretty proud of myself for controlling my energy as much as I could.”
Most encouraging, though?
Utah isn’t satisfied. The Red Rocks want more, with the NCAA portion of the postseason upcoming.
“This team is so so talented,” Padurariu said. “The sky is the limit.”