It isn’t hyperbole to say that Avery Neff has been one of Utah gymnastics’ best competitors this season.
The true freshman has, when healthy, been a real difference maker for the Red Rocks, and especially so lately. In her last two outings, Neff averaged a 39.59 in the all-around, a score that, if applied to the whole season, would rank her No. 5 in the country, ahead of teammates Grace McCallum and Makenna Smith, even.
At the Big 12 Conference championships last weekend, Neff tied with teammate Ana Padurariu for the event title on balance beam, finished second in the all-around behind McCallum and tied for fourth on floor exercise — beat only by McCallum, Smith and West Virginia’s Sophia Rice.
Neff, of course, hasn’t been that good all season. She’s had to deal with nerves — early in the year, especially — then a pair of severe ankle sprains and a subsequent deliberate return to form after coming back from injury.
But even with all of that, Neff has been a real difference maker for Utah.
That isn’t exactly surprising.
Neff was the top recruit in her signing class and is the highest ever rated prospect by College Gym News, and even with her missing nearly 30% of the season and a slow return to the all-around, she has lived up to the billing.
The only freshman in the country who has been definitely better this season is LSU’s Kailin Chio. Ahead of NCAA regionals next week, all signs point to Neff continuing to compete at the level she’s been competing at the last couple of weeks, if not even better.
“She’s doing really well,” Utah head coach Carly Dockendorf said Thursday.
The only real question with Neff at this point is how she’ll fare at the NCAA gymnastics championships themselves, if Utah manages to advance to nationals for a record 49th time.
The odds of that are good, considering Utah is hosting regionals. College Gym News’ postseason simulator gives the Red Rocks an 88.4% chance to qualify for nationals this year, third best odds for any team.
The NCAA national championships are, arguably, the biggest stage that Neff will have ever competed on in her gymnastics career, a larger stage than the Nastia Liukin Cup or USA Gymnastics’ Women’s Development Program National Championships (Level 10 national championships).
Adding to that, the national championships are competed on podium, which for the uninitiated means that every event is up on a temporary stage or platform rather than directly on the arena floor, which has the effect of making apparatuses noticeably less stable.
Neff hasn’t competed often on a podium in her gymnastics career, with both times coming this season with Utah — at the Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad in Oklahoma City in January and at the Big 12 Conference championships in West Valley City.
“I like it, I’m not going to lie,” Neff said of competing on podium following the Big 12 championships. “I kind of have the personality that I like to show off and I feel like that’s kind of my moment. I can just fully have confidence in myself. It’s just me up on the beam, me up on the whatever event I’m doing and I can really trust myself in what I’m doing.
“Maile (O’Keefe) also helped me on beam (at Big 12s). I was having a little bit of a hard time with warmups at practice and she kind of told us, ‘Just be patient. It’s a little bit more bouncy,’ and I was like, ‘OK, yeah, that’s what it is’ and then went out there and just gave it my all.”
Neff’s confidence regarding competing on podium is fairly well founded, even though she hasn’t done it much. She was Utah’s best gymnast at Sprouts, with three scores of 9.90 or better.
Her 39.600 in the all-around tied her for fifth overall in the competition, putting her on par with gymnasts such as LSU’s Chio and Aleah Finnegan and Oklahoma’s Jordan Bowers, Faith Torrez and Audrey Davis. It was only her second meet as a Red Rock, too.
And as mentioned previously, her all-around performance at the Big 12 championships was second only to McCallum and only just at that.
That said, Neff will probably not be completely 100% healthy at any point the remainder of the season after her ankle sprains, even though her recovery has gone much faster than almost anyone anticipated.
She told the Deseret News earlier this month that she “feels good walking now, when I used to not even be able to wake up and put pressure on them.
“It would take a long time for them to start getting more mobility throughout the day, so there’s definitely progress there and a bunch of other things have progressed so quickly.”
Considering everything Neff has accomplished and overcome this season, count her out at your own peril in the postseason, when the lights are shining the brightest.
