For a team that has been ranked in the top five for much of the year and claimed the regular season conference title by going undefeated against league foes, Utah’s gymnastics squad enters the Pac-12 Championships in a rather unusual position.
The Utes (10-1, 6-0) spoke openly earlier this season about wanting to be a target and welcoming the favorite’s role, instead the Utes find themselves seeded second behind Cal in the conference championships. Saturday’s meet at the Maverik Center is as much about winning a title as it is making a statement about their gymnastics in general.
“We know we should have been better or could have been better in the regular season,” sophomore Maile O’Keefe said. “But having a different starting position doesn’t tell who is going to win the meet.”
The Utes’ point of contention isn’t with the season throughout, but rather how it ended. The Utes weren’t as clean as they wanted to be in their win at Oregon State and certainly weren’t happy with the mistakes they made in their final home meet of the year, the 197.25-196.5 win over Utah State.
It was that score combined with Cal’s 197.6-196.025 win over Washington that pushed the Bears ahead of the Utes in the rankings.
PAC-12 GYMNASTICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
At the Maverik Center
When • Saturday, Noon and 7 p.m.
Teams listed with the event in which they begin:
Noon session
Arizona (vault), Oregon State (bars), Stanford (beam), Washington (floor)
7 p.m. session
Cal (vault) Utah (bars), Arizona State (beam), UCLA (floor)
TV • Pac-12 Networks
Following Utah’s win, senior Sydney Soloski called out her teammates for not performing up to the level she sees in the gym every day. No surprise, then, that the message of the week seems to be getting back to the basics, starting with hitting 24-for-24 routines Saturday.
“We haven’t hit 24 routines so this week we are focusing on the small details and our mental approach to the routines,” O’Keefe said.
As the top seed Cal selected the Olympic rotation of opening on vault, the Utes opted to start on bars, a rotation that could be advantageous to them. Bars is Utah’s weakest event so coach Tom Farden believes opening on it will help the team gain momentum through the rotation. The Utes close out the meet on the vault, where they are the only team in the conference with four 10.0-valued vaults.
“Hopefully we can pick up steam through the meet,” Farden said. “Our goal is to hit a good, clean meet.”
The Utes believe if they do that, they will be in a good position to bring home the first conference meet title since 2017. UCLA won in 2018 and 2019 and the conference meet was cancelled last year due to the pandemic.
The Utes might have made it through the regular conference schedule unscathed, but if anything the experience showed them how good the teams are in the league, not how beatable they were. The Utes had nail biters with Cal, UCLA and Arizona State, the teams that happen to be in the night session with them.
“The Pac-12 has become a nationally competitive conference,” Farden said. “There is a lot of good talent and the rise of the programs coming up are making it even stronger.”
Winning the championship would not only show the Utes can get over their late-season slump but also put them in a good position for the NCAA Regionals. It would also earn back a little bit of the attention the Utes want.
“I’ve always felt winning the tournament and big meets bodes well for the competitiveness you will see down the road,” Farden said. “Winning a major conference title speaks volumes about a team’s potential on the biggest stage.”
Mountain Rim Championships
The rest of the state’s gymnastics teams will be competing Saturday as well in the Mountain Rim Gymnastics Championships hosted by Utah State.
BYU looks like it is ready to challenge Boise State’s hold on the conference title after posting a 197.3 in its final meet, the program’s highest score since 2004.
Boise State won the title from 2017-2019. The conference championships weren’t held in 2020 due to the pandemic.
BYU was named the conference champion since it was ranked highest with a No. 16 ranking and a 196.5 National Qualifying Score to finish 2020.
This year the Cougars are ranked No. 12 with a 197.063 average while conference foes Boise State is No. 19 (196.706), Utah State is No. 21 (196.531) and Southern Utah is No. 20 (196.663).