Utah gymnastics’ performance in the regional semifinals was enough to advance

Utah gymnastics is moving on to the final meet of the Salt Lake City Regional.

A 49th trip to nationals is still on the table, as is a another trip to the national championship meet, and with that a possible national title.

The Red Rocks, led by freshman Avery Neff, did enough Thursday night in their regional semifinal at the Huntsman Center, finishing as one of the top two teams in the second of two semifinal meets (UCLA and Minnesota were the top two teams in the the first semifinal).

Utah tied with Denver for first with a 197.650 (after a video review of a floor routine went in the favor of the Pioneers, giving their score a boost), ahead of Stanford (196.500) and BYU (196.000).

The tie punched both the Utes and Pioneers’ tickets into the next round of the NCAA women’s gymnastics championships.

“Our goal today was to qualify to Saturday and we did that,” head coach Carly Dockendorf said, “so that was our mission and that’s what we needed to do to continue on and make our way to nationals.”

A lot went right for the Red Rocks. Notably, Neff won the all-around competition for the first time in her collegiate career, finishing with a 39.650.

The freshman was nothing short of outstanding, far and away the best gymnast for Utah and pretty clearly best gymnast overall.

Grace McCallum got another perfect 10 on uneven bars, this one her first perfect bar routine inside the Huntsman Center. Freshman Zoe Johnson stuck her 10.0-valued vault for the first time in her career.

McCallum and Makenna Smith both had standout routines on floor exercise and tied for the event title, and Neff and Amelie Morgan did well enough on balance beam to claim a share of that event title, too.

Enough went wrong, though, that after the competition Utah was far from satisfied.

Utah was on pace to score a 198 entering the final rotation of the meet, a score that would have matched what No. 1 seed LSU did earlier in the evening at the State College Regional in Pennsylvania.

But the Red Rocks collapsed on beam and finished that event with a 49.175, nearly four tenths of a point fewer than what they averaged on beam during the regular season.

It was not as significant of a collapse as what happened during the regular season at Arizona State, but still significant enough to let Denver pull even in the end despite Utah being the better team on floor and bars.

“Beam, you know, not much to say about beam,” Dockendorf said with pained laugh. “To be honest, I actually was dreading today more than Saturday, because I knew that we were going to be finishing on beam and regardless of where we were at (in the meet), just kind of watching the pattern of our team a little bit this year we tend to get tight sometimes on that event.

“There’s new people in the lineup this year who haven’t been in that pressure situation, and although we just needed to do our normal job and we’d be fine, I just think that they weren’t relying on their confidence on that event, really trusting themselves.”

It ultimately didn’t hurt Utah and could end up providing the Red Rocks a little extra motivation in their Saturday night showdown with the Bruins, Pioneers and Golden Gophers with a spot at nationals on the line.

“We had some really, really good things, and we have lots of areas to improve, which is great just seeing the score and knowing that we can do so much better than that,” McCallum said.

“There are definitely some areas that we can improve on,” Johnson added.

Dockendorf believes her team will be especially driven on Saturday, to prove that the mistakes of Thursday night were not who the Red Rocks really are.

“I think that they are very determined,” she said. “I think they don’t like the way that that feels because they know that they’re capable of so much more, and so my guess is they’re going to come back pretty fired up on Saturday.”

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Defining moment

McCallum’s perfect routine warrants further mention.

The seventh perfect 10 of her collegiate career, fifth on bars, this one was special for McCallum. She’d never received a perfect score on her premiere event in her home arena.

“I’ve been waiting for (that) for years,” she said, “so it was pretty exciting.”

It moves up into rare company in program history, too. McCallum is now tied for sixth all-time with Missy Marlowe for the most perfect 10s in program history.

Only four gymnasts have been more perfect in their Utah careers — Maile O’Keefe, Theresa Kulikowski, Kristen Kenoyer and Georgia Dabritz.

O’Keefe, Kulikowski and Kenoyer are probably out of reach for McCallum, but Dabritz is only two perfect scores ahead of her, with potentially three meets remaining in McCallum’s career.

Also deserving of mention is Neff, not for any specific routine, but just in general. The freshmen’s story this season has been well documented, as has her potential to be the next superstar for Utah.

She definitely looked the part Thursday. Her vault was arguably her best this season, and her bar routine not far off. Her floor routine was definitely the best she’s competed since returning from injury.

It was her beam routine, though, that was the true standout. Utah was in the middle of its beam meltdown when Neff stepped up and delivered a event-winning routine.

It would’ve been an impressive performance by any gymnast, let alone a freshman. That’s Neff though.

“My gymnastics is kind of my gymnastics, and no matter what happens before me, no matter what happens after me, I’m still going to do my job,” she said, “and even if there’s some mishaps, I know what I’m going to do and I’m confident myself that I’m going to do it.”

When it comes to the most important routine of the night, though, especially when talking about Utah’s potential the rest of this season, nothing trumps Johnson’s vault.

The freshman hasn’t been in the lineup for very long, only entering late in the regular season, but her stuck Yurchenko 1.5 changes the outlook of Utah’s vault rotation.

Prior to Johnson’s stick, Utah had four gymnasts who’d proven capable of sticking 10.0-valued vault this year — Neff, Smith, Ashley Glynn and Ella Zirbes — but rarely had those four stuck their vaults in the same meet, and no more than two at a time.

Johnson gives Utah a fifth vaulter capable of sticking a 10.0-valued vault. Its been proven in competition now, and that has the potential to change Utah’s postseason trajectory.

Where vault was the team’s clear weakness, it now has the potential to be on par with any other vault lineup in the country.

“I’ve been saying this for a while, but that’s the kind of caliber vault you need in postseason to separate yourself from the other teams,” Dockendorf said, “so I’m really proud of her and and just all the work that she’s been putting in for that.”

Needs work

Beyond beam, which is the clearly the event Utah needs to be better on, bars and vault left the most to be desired.

On bars it was largely landings. There were a couple of sticks in the lineup, courtesy of McCallum and Neff, but otherwise Utah gave up tenths of a point with steps.

“Left some room with some steps on dismount,” Dockendorf said.

Those are tenths of points that are vital in postseason competition. Deductions happen throughout routines, that’s the sport, but landings are one of the more controllable elements and most easily seen by the judges.

If Utah is to be better, then Red Rocks have to stop giving away those obvious deductions.

The same holds true on vault. Utah was pretty good on vault, maybe even the best it has been all season. The Red Rocks scored a 49.4 and got two sticks — one from Neff and the other from Johnson.

But there is real room for improvement. Smith took a sizable step forward on her landing on a vault that otherwise was nearly flawless. Glynn too took a step, (hers went backward), undermining a good vault.

If those two vaults are stuck, the lineup and the meet itself looks completely different. At this point in the season, Utah can’t settle for 9.8s or 9.85s on vault when 9.90-or better vaults are clearly possible.

“We left a little bit of room to improve still for Saturday,” Dockendorf said.

That’s encouraging

Other gymnasts deserve mention for strong routines. Morgan on bars and beam to name one, but also Jaylene Gilstrap on floor. Both seniors came through on their signature events.

Morgan was as good as she has been all season and Gilstrap was as consistent as ever.

On a more macro scale, though, perhaps the most encouraging thing about Utah’s performance was that the Red Rocks found a way.

The postseason is unlike any of the competitions that come before it. More pressure, more eyes, more judges, more everything really. Teams often bring their absolute best with the hope of keeping their seasons alive.

Thursday night that was Denver. The Pioneers had not competed that well all season, but they channeled their best performance at the right time and upset No. 13 Stanford as an unseeded team.

Utah didn’t do that, but the Red Rocks did enough to survive and advance. They could’ve done much worse and still moved on thanks to some struggles by Stanford and BYU, but the tie with Denver showed that Utah won’t go away without a fight.

Neff and Ana Padurariu combined to do just enough in the final two beam routines of the night to give Utah the win, prior to a scoring appeal by Denver that tied things up.

It wasn’t pretty or dominant but Utah did what it needed to to get the win (or in actuality the tie) and was reminded of what it takes to advance in the postseason.

“I think just it’s a good reminder that we can’t get ahead of ourselves,” Dockendorf said. “We have to just stay one routine at a time, one person at a time, one event at a time. We can’t already be thinking about the end, and I think today was a good reminder of that.”

She added, “The best of the best qualify through (to nationals). I think all the regions are really strong this year, and clearly we have some excellent teams that are here. That’s what we train for, competing in these meets.”