Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
WEST VALLEY CITY — It just wasn't the Red Rocks' day.
Outside of a couple individual routines, it was an uncharacteristic meet for the second-ranked Red Rocks in the first-ever Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad meet at the Maverik Center.
Reigning national champions Oklahoma set the tone early on vault with a 49.450 team score, while the Red Rocks started slow and failed to have a gymnast score a 9.90 or better in the first rotation on uneven bars.
The Sooners, much like they have done over the years, used that early momentum to pull away from their competitors to win the meet with a 197.900 score against regular championship-caliber teams.
LSU used a strong final rotation on bars to pull ahead of UCLA to finish in second with a score of 197.150, edging past the Bruins' 197.100. Utah finished with a 196.975 score.
"Obviously, not the finish that we we're anticipating or wanting tonight, but the mistakes that we made are ones that we're gonna need to learn from and adjust moving forward," Red Rocks head coach Carly Dockendorf said.
"It wasn't our best meet, but it's meet two of the season," Red Rocks gymnast Abby Paulson said. "We're not going to be discouraged, we're gonna come back on Monday in the same arena, our home state of Utah, to compete against the other teams that are here, and we're gonna move forward as a team and together and work on the things that we didn't do as well on today."
The Red Rocks opened up the meet with back-to-back 9.750 scores on bars before Ella Zirbes fell to her knees on her landing in the third position, setting a difficult tone to open the meet. The final three gymnasts managed to score an 9.825 or higher, but nothing in the 9.90's.
Conversely, every other team had at least two gymnasts score a 9.90 or higher in the first rotation.
Despite a rough start to the meet, Utah moved to its traditionally stout beam team on the next rotation, with hopes of a big comeback. But the mistakes continued on beam where Maile O'Keefe, who scored the nation's first 10.0 on beam a week prior, fell off the beam in the anchor spot, capping off another uncharacteristic day.
"We dug ourselves into a pretty big hole after those first two rotations, and those were kind of below-average routines for us across the board," Dockendorf said. "So to finish close to some of the other teams with two events not quite on our side, it's encouraging, but still not what we wanted."
Utah recovered a bit on floor with a 49.350 team score, but by then Oklahoma had created a sizable lead (and the two other teams had more success) before Utah finished with a team-high 49.400 score on vault behind a 9.950 score by freshman Camie Winger. It just wasn't enough to combat the pressure of the day.
Grace McCallum, who competed on vault for the first time in a year after suffering an injury on the event last season, said the team fell to the pressure of the meet.
"We had some uncharacteristic mistakes," McCallum said. "I just would say we weren't our most confident out there today, but it's a good starting point. You always learn from your mistakes, so it's a good stepping stone moving forward, and all we can do is learn from it and hopefully get better."
"There was a lot of nerves today, and I think moving forward that's what we need to work on," Paulson said. "Our gymnastics is there, everyone here is a gorgeous gymnasts, we've got so much talent and depth, so I think we're very capable of showing that once we get in the groove of things."
Dockendorf said her team "put a lot of extra pressure all of a sudden" once the competition started, despite warmups that looked "excellent."
"They looked focused and they were sharp, and then I think they just started doubting themselves a little bit and didn't just trust their gymnastics and all their preparation that they had put in this week," Dockendorf said.
"I think that sometimes we can learn a lot more from not being super successful than we can from just hitting everything all the time," Dockendorf added. "So I think that we do have a lot to learn from today moving forward, and next time when we see teams of this caliber again, we're going to be even more confident moving forward."
Team scores
No. 1 Oklahoma
- Vault (49.450)
- Bars (98.900, 49.450)
- Beam (148.400, 49.500)
- Floor (197.900, 49.475)
No. 2 Utah
- Bars (49.050)
- Beam (98.175, 49.125)
- Floor (147.575, 49.350)
- Vault (196.975, 49.400)
No. 5 LSU
- Beam (48.750)
- Floor (98.275, 49.525)
- Vault (147.500, 49.225)
- Bars (197.150, 49.650)
No. 12 UCLA
- Floor (49.200)
- Vault (98.600, 49.400)
- Bars (147.850, 49.250)
- Beam (197.100, 49.250)
Red Rocks scores
1st Rotation: Bars (49.050)
- Makenna Smith: 9.750
- Alani Sabado: 9.750
- Ella Zirbes: 9.150
- Amelie Morgan: 9.825
- Grace McCallum: 9.850
- Maile O'Keefe: 9.875
2nd Rotation: Beam (49.125)
- Amelie Morgan: 9.825
- Makenna Smith: 9.875
- Jaylene Gilstrap: 9.700
- Grace McCallum: 9.800
- Abby Paulson: 9.925
- Maile O'Keefe: 9.150
3rd Rotation: Floor (49.350)
- Makenna Smith: 9.90
- Abby Paulson: 9.875
- Jaylene Gilstrap: 9.850
- Jaedyn Rucker: 9.850
- Grace McCallum: 9.875
- Maile O'Keefe: 9.575
4th Rotation: Vault (49.400)
- Camie Winger: 9.950
- Ella Zirbes: 9.850
- Ashley Glynn: 9.725
- Grace McCallum: 9.875
- Makenna Smith: 9.925
- Jaedyn Rucker: 9.800
