Utah gymnastics will enter the postseason in the best form possible form. Exactly the way that teams hope.
After a season best described as consistently inconsistent â the Red Rocks scored in the 197.7-197.8 range in five meets and regularly did well on three of the four events â Utah put it all together Friday night in its regular season finale at the Huntsman Center.
Led by senior Abby Paulson, who recorded the second perfect 10 of her career, plus a stellar all-around outing from junior Grace McCallum, Utah recorded a season-high 198.300 in a victory over Stanford and Utah State.
That score is the fifth-highest ever recorded by a Utah gymnastics team, behind only a 198.600 posted against BYU in 2004, a 198.575 earned against Minnesota in 2022, a 198.550 against Cal in 2023 and a 198.425 against BYU in 2002.
âWhat a special night,â Utah head coach Carly Dockendorf said. âFor the whole team, but especially for the seniors for us to go out with our season high with some incredible routines. Just overall, to have the Huntsman as packed as it has been all season was a special moment. Just really proud of the work the team is putting in.
â… They really have been dialed in and intentional in practice, not just making their routines but making them with adjustments. It is going to take more and more days of practice for that to show up and tonight we did see some changes. We didnât just see the same mistakes. Is there room to improve? Absolutely there is room to improve, but really big strides from where we started to where we are now.â
Utah dominated in basically every way Friday, scoring a 49.500 or better on every event. A Red Rock won every single event title, with McCallum in the all-around and on floor exercise, uneven bars and vault and Paulson winning the beam title.
Stanford finished a distant second in the meet with a 196.500 â yes, the Red Rocks nearly beat the Cardinal by two points â while Utah State was third with a 195.225.
It was exactly the sort of meet teams hope for late in the regular season with the postseason beckoning.
âTonight was really important to get that score,â Dockendorf said. âI think it provides confidence to the team, to know that they are capable of doing that.â
Paulson was perfect. In a meet filled with notable gymnastics, no single moment was more touching, more chilling or more memorable than the fifth-year seniorâs perfection on beam.
Paulson, notably, had a perfect 10 in her career previously, on the road at UCLA her freshmen season.
Since then, however, she had come up short time and again, though Dockendorf noted that she believed Paulson had competed numerous perfect beam routines this season.
Against Stanford and Utah State, the judges agreed with Dockendorfâs assessment.
The routine was something in and of itself, but the reaction was even more notable. Few dry eyes existed in the arena after Paulson stuck her landing. Paulson herself, a fierce competitor, couldnât keep it together, crying into her own hands.
âI came into today trying not to put a lot of pressure on myself,â Paulson said. âCarly asked me (before I competed) what I was going to do, and I said âIâm going to be calm and confident,â like I do every single time.
âWhen I was up on the beam I was trying to focus on my routine, focus on my song, instead of focusing on the fact that it was my last beam routine in the Huntsman. But I couldnât really hold it together when I landed. Iâm just really grateful for everything.â
Maile OâKeefe is no stranger to perfect beam routines, having recorded a record 13 in her career. Seeing Paulson get another one, even though she was next up to compete, was a moment the senior wonât soon forget.
âShe (Paulson) is an amazing beam worker. It has just been a matter of time before she got it,â OâKeefe said of Paulson. âIt is quite special to just be doing my mental set and focusing on myself but also rooting for her very intently while Iâm doing it. It was amazing to hear the crowd go wild and to turn around and see her breaking down, so happy, it made me so happy. … It was amazing to see her accomplish that.â
In a meet like the one Utah had, nearly every routine could warrant mention for one reason or another.
Still, there were multiple routines that were season and/or career defining.
Camie Winger recorded a new career high on uneven bars, a 9.90 in just her third counted routine as a Utah gymnast on the event. Jaylene Gilstrap tied her career high on floor with a 9.95, with one judge even handing out a perfect 10.
McCallum was nearly perfect on multiple events â bars and floor â and looked capable of competing with the best all-around gymnasts in the country. And not even a year ago she wasnât able to compete gymnastics at all after a serious knee injury.
Perhaps most encouraging of all though, was the bars routine by Alani Sabado. The senior was had an up-and-down final season, mirroring what has been an up-and-down four-year career at Utah.
There have been moments this year where Sabado has looked like an integral part of the Red Rocksâ bars lineup and other moments were it can be argued she shouldnât have been in the lineup.
Against Stanford and Utah State, though, she competed the single best bars routine of her collegiate career, in a moment where Utah needed her to hit, else the team would have to count a 9.00 from freshmen Ella Zirbes.
Sabadoâs routine was such that Dockendorf called it her favorite of the night.
âI was incredibly proud of Alani,â Dockendorf said. âShe has been working so hard at picking up 0.5 (deductions) in her routine. She has been coming in to practice and really focusing on those things.
âFor her to go out there and make some of those small changes that sheâs been doing, that was probably one of my favorite moments from tonight, watching her hit that bar routine, knowing how much work sheâs truly put in to elevate her score.â
As noted by Dockendorf, Utah on the whole wasnât perfect, historic score aside. There were steps on landings still â particularly on vault and bars â and slight mistakes like leg separation prevented gymnasts such as McCallum from getting perfect 10s of their own.
Just look at OâKeefeâs performance â she scored a 9.850 on bars, a 9.90 on beam and a 9.925 on floor â and there were clear routines that could have been better, that have been better in the past and likely will be better going forward.
Vault again was the most glaring when it came to mistakes, only because of landings. No gymnast was able to truly stick their landing, though Rucker fought hard to get a stick.
Of course, Rucker struggled with her block and got very little height or distance on her vault, which contrasted well with efforts by Ashley Glynn and Jaylene Gilstrap, both of whom got incredible height and distance on their vaults yet couldnât control their landings.
Even in a floor rotation that scored a 49.700, tying the Red Rocksâ season high on the event, there was room for improvement, albeit not much.
With the postseason up next, however, the Red Rocks will need to continue to clean up the little mistakes.
The first thing Utahâs gymnasts will say following a meet is that they donât look at scores. Scores are out of their control. Their gymnastics arenât.
âTo be honest we werenât really focused on the score, we were focused on going out and hitting four solid events, beginning to end of each lineup, to be confident in our routines and be happy with how we did,â Paulson said. âObviously when we do that we are going to get the scores that we want.â
And yet, a 198.300 is the type of score that matters. As Rucker put it while looking at the score sheet after meet, âOh, we slayed.â
With its season-high score, Utah showed again that it is capable of hitting that 198 and beyond, a score necessary to compete with the best teams in the upcoming postseason.
Friday nightâs meet showed that Utah has the potential and capability to compete as well as anyone. Now the challenge is to do so consistently.
âWeâve been scoring 197.8, 197.5, in that area,â Dockendorf said. âIf we just stuck two more beam dismounts, one more vault and one more bar routine we would be over 198 every single meet, and that is pretty much what we did tonight.
âWe didnât stick everything, but we did add two stuck dismounts here, one stuck dismount there and that is where we end up. Seeing that in action really shows that there is more we can do to elevate our score moving forward.â
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A man died after he was caught in an avalanche in Big Cottonwood Canyon over the weekend.
A spokesperson for the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office confirmed on Thursday that Kevin Williams, 57, had died.
He, along with one other person, was hospitalized in critical condition after Saturday’s avalanche in the backcountry.
In an interview with 2News earlier this week, one of Williams’ close friends, Nate Burbidge, described him as a loving family man.
“Kevin’s an amazing guy. He’s always serving, looking for ways that he can connect with others,” Burbidge said.
A GoFundMe was set up to help support Williams’ family.
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CONTENT WARNING: This report discusses suicide and includes descriptions of audio from 911 calls that some viewers may find disturbing.
LAS VEGAS — Exclusively obtained 911 recordings detail the hours leading up to the discovery of an 11-year-old Utah girl and her mother dead inside a Las Vegas hotel room in an apparent murder-suicide.
Addi Smith and her mother, Tawnia McGeehan, lived in West Jordan and had traveled to Nevada for the JAMZ cheerleading competition.
The calls show a growing sense of urgency from family members and coaches, and several hours passing before relatives learned what happened.
Below is a timeline of the key moments, according to dispatch records. All times are Pacific Time.
After Addi and her mother failed to appear at the cheerleading competition, Addi’s father and stepmother called dispatch for a welfare check.
Addi and her mother were staying at the Rio hotel. The father told dispatch that hotel security had already attempted contact.
“Security went up and knocked on the door. There’s no answer or response it doesn’t look like they checked out or anything…”
As concern grew, Addi’s coach contacted the police two times within minutes.
“We think the child possibly is in imminent danger…”
Addi’s stepmother placed another call to dispatch, expressing escalating concern.
“We are extremely concerned we believe that something might have seriously happened.”
She said that Tawnia’s car was still at the hotel.
Police indicated officers were on the way.
Nearly three hours after the initial welfare check request, fire personnel were en route to the scene. It appeared they had been in contact with hotel security.
Fire told police that they were responding to a possible suicide.
“They found a note on the door.”
Emergency medical personnel at the scene told police they had located two victims.
“It’s going to be gunshot wound to the head for both patients with notes”
A dispatcher responded:
“Oh my goodness that’s not okay.”
Moments later, fire personnel relayed their assessment to law enforcement:
“It’s going to be a murder suicide, a juvenile and a mother.”
Unaware of what had been discovered, Addi’s father called dispatch again.
“I’m trying to file a missing persons report for my daughter.”
He repeats the details he knows for the second time.
Father and stepmother call again seeking information and continue to press for answers.
“We just need some information. There was a room check done around 3:00 we really don’t know where to start with all of this Can we have them call us back immediately?”
Dispatch responded:
“As soon as there’s a free officer, we’ll have them reach out to you.”
More than an hour later, Addi’s father was put in contact with the police on the scene. He pleaded for immediate action.
“I need someone there I need someone there looking in that room”
The officer confirmed that they had officers currently in the room.
Addi’s father asks again what they found, if Addi and her mother are there, and if their things were missing.
The officer, who was not on scene, said he had received limited information.
Nearly seven hours after the first welfare check request, Addi’s grandmother contacted police, describing conflicting information circulating within the family.
“Some people are telling us that they were able to get in, and they were not in the hotel room, and other people saying they were not able to get in the hotel room, and we need to know”
She repeated the details of the case. Dispatch said officers will call her back once they have more information.
Later that evening, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police held a news conference confirming that Addi and her mother, Tawnia McGeehan, were found dead inside the hotel room.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — AI glasses could allow you to get answers, snap photos, access audio and take phone calls—and now a proposal moving through the legislature would ban the glasses from Utah school classrooms.
“I think it’s a great idea,” said Kizzy Guyton Murphy, a mother who accompanied her child’s class on a field trip to the state Capitol on Wednesday. “You can’t see inside what the student is looking at, and it’s just grounds for cheating.”
Mom Tristan Davies Seamons also sees trouble with AI glasses.
“I don’t think they should have any more technology in schools than they currently have,” she said.
Her twin daughters, fourth graders Finley and Grayson, don’t have cell phones yet.
“Not until we’re like 14,” said Grayson, adding they do have Chromebooks in school.
2News sent questions to the Utah State Board of Education:
Matt Winters, USBE AI specialist, said the board has not received reports from school districts of students with AI glasses.
“Local Education Agencies (school districts) have local control over these decisions based on current law and code,” said Winters. “The Board has not taken a position on AI glasses.
Some districts across the country have reportedly put restrictions on the glasses in schools.
“I think it should be up to the teachers,” said Briauna Later, another mother who is all for preventing cheating, but senses a ban could leave administrators with tired eyes.
“It’s one more thing for the administration to have to keep track of,” said Later.
The proposal, HB 42, passed the House and cleared a Senate committee on Wednesday.
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