There are a lot of reasons why BYU gymnastics maybe shouldn’t be competing against Utah State tomorrow afternoon in the Salt Lake City regional play-in meet. With the chance to advance to the regional semifinals and take on No. 4 Utah, No. 13 Stanford and Denver on Thursday.
For starters, the BYU team that advanced to the semifinals of the Fayetteville regional last year, the Cougars who defeated Oregon State and had a real chance to upset Minnesota did not come back complete this season.
No, with the departures of Anyssa Alvarado, Allix Mason, Madison Raesly-Patton and Elease Rollins — to name a few — BYU needed to replace nearly half of the routines that were competed for the Cougars in the postseason last year. And the team didn’t exactly have gymnasts ready and waiting to fill those gaps.
“There was a lot missing, and there was a lot of gaps that we had to fill in,” senior Sophie Dudley said. “And then there wasn’t a lot of replacements as well.”
Still, the Cougars managed, behind a leadership council that emphasized instilling confidence in those gymnasts who were going to have to compete.
“Building the confidence of the girls that we knew had that ability and had that potential to go in on lineups, that was our main focus,” Dudley said. “We just built on them so strongly and believed in them fully.”
It seemed to work too.
“We really felt like we were ready to start the 2025 season off,” head coach Guard Young said. “Did all of our preseason training. We felt like we had it dialed in.”
Then tragedy struck, right before the season. The real-life kind of tragedy away from sport, the kind that affected anyone and everyone in the program.
“It was one of those things where gymnastics kind of took a back burner to the season and even to gymnastics,” Young said. “It was just about caring and loving our players and making sure that where they were safe. Gymnastics is a sport where, if you just have any lapse of concentration for a millisecond, you know, you’re flipping, you’re exposing your head and neck. And so it was honestly just keeping them safe through that kind of emotional time.”
The Cougars competed, though. They didn’t want the season to become about anything other than their gymnastics. It was difficult to do though, because to start the year the Cougars’ scores were objectively poor. Very poor.
BYU recorded a 194.625 in its season-opening meet against Auburn, Oklahoma and Nebraska. The next time out the Cougars put up a 194.200 in a loss to Oregon State. Things were at their worst against Southern Utah, a loss at home by BYU in which the Cougars scored a 193.375.
Were the Cougars as bad their scores indicated? Probably not, as scoring this season was something of an adventure, especially early on when the SCORE Board — an ill-fated attempt to evaluate judges and standardize scoring across the sport — was still in effect.
Add it all up, though, and BYU was on pace for one of its worst seasons in recent memory. And NCAA regionals appeared to be a long way off.
Slowly but surely, beginning with The Best of Utah, BYU started to turn things around, though.
The Cougars notched their first win of the season on Jan. 31 against UC Davis and narrowly lost to SUU in a third meeting between the teams.
On Feb. 14 came another victory, this one against West Virginia, followed by another, this time at Iowa State.
By midseason, BYU looked like the team that had been projected to be one of the 36 teams that would compete at regionals this year.
“We got them through that and then it was just ‘OK, let’s go,’” Young said. ”You kind of see that mark of the season, and those kids did a remarkable job.”
Remarkable indeed. By the end of the regular season, BYU was one of the top four teams in the reconfigured Big 12 Conference, behind only Utah, Arizona and Denver (when you consider conference record).
The Cougars didn’t get to compete in the evening session at the Big 12 championships because seeding was based on NQS (national qualifying score) and not conference record, but BYU took care of business in the afternoon session and finished with the fourth-best score overall in the conference championships behind Utah, Arizona and Denver.
BYU competed loose and free, having done enough to secure its spot in the Salt Lake City regionals play-in meet beforehand. And it showed.
“It was really exciting,” Dudley said. “We got to treat it as a fun meet because what did we have to lose? We’d already made it regionals. It was just for fun, to see how well we’ve been doing.”
She added, with emphasis: “BYU showed up too.”
Throughout the season really, after the slow and difficult start. And now the Cougars are back where they usually are. At least where they’ve been the last few years. BYU competed against Boise State in a regional play-win meet in consecutive years in 2023 and 2024, winning one and losing one.
Now it is Utah State who stands in the way.
Who is going to win in a meet between teams tied at No. 32 nationally? It is anyone’s meet, Young said.
“They (Utah State) got us once at The Best of Utah, so we’re looking to kind of make a comeback,” he said. “They’re a great team, Mountain West champions that beat a Boise State team. They’re on a high too. It’s going to be a great battle. I am so excited for both programs right now and I can’t tell you who’s going to win. We’re going to go out there and we’re going to do our best job. They’re going to go out and do the same thing. I don’t know who will win, but I love it.”
That doesn’t mean that BYU doesn’t think it won’t advance though and compete against the Utes, Cardinal and Pioneers.
After the season the Cougars have had, confidence isn’t lacking.
“We’re going to have a good challenging competition,” Dudley said. “They’re going to bring what they’ve got and we’re going to bring what we’ve got, but even better. I’m gonna be a little biased on our part.”
