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 — Utah football’s first official visit weekend of the 2027 recruiting cycle has already produced a payoff, as Morgan Scalley has landed the commitment of three-star offensive lineman Sire Stewart.
Stewart, a 6-foot-5, 255-pound offensive tackle out of Chandler High School in Arizona, became one of the key names to watch coming into the weekend.
Utah hosted several offensive line targets as part of its first official visit group, and Stewart leaving Salt Lake City committed gives the Utes a tangible recruiting win at a priority position.
Utah’s first official visit weekend under Scalley was always going to be about more than hosting prospects. It was the first major chance for the new regime to show recruits and families what the program looks like with Scalley as head coach and D’Orazio helping guide the roster-building operation.
Stewart’s commitment gives Utah an early return from that effort.
The Utes need momentum in the 2027 class, and official visit weekends are where that momentum often starts. Landing an offensive lineman from Arizona also reinforces one of Utah’s most important recruiting priorities: continuing to build regionally while identifying prospects who fit the program’s developmental model.
Stewart had official visits scheduled to Washington State and Boise State but elected to give his pledge to the Utes instead.
Utah’s pursuit of Stewart did not begin this weekend. Offensive line coach Jordan Gross offered Stewart in early February, with the Utes becoming his 10th offer and third Power Four opportunity behind Duke and Arizona. Since then, Stewart has added offers from Oklahoma State, Baylor and Cal, while also making an unofficial visit to Arizona State.
Utah was not late to the evaluation. The Utes identified Stewart early, prioritized him and then got him on campus for the first official visit weekend of the cycle. In modern recruiting, that kind of early relationship-building is important.
Gross may be new to college coaching, but this is a good first recruiting win. He gives Utah a unique offensive line pitch. He played at Utah, became one of the program’s best examples of development translating to the NFL, and now gets to sell that same path to recruits. For a prospect like Stewart, Utah can offer both a developmental plan and a real example of what that plan can become.
Stewart’s commitment also continues a clear early theme for Utah. The Utes are prioritizing the trenches, particularly from the high school ranks.
Utah has long built its program around line-of-scrimmage play, and that identity is not expected to change under Scalley. If anything, it appears to be one of the first pieces of the roster construction plan being emphasized in the 2027 class.
Stewart gives Utah a developmental offensive line prospect with the frame to grow into a Big 12 lineman. Listed by 247Sports at 6-foot-5 and 255 pounds, he still has room to add strength and mass, but the foundation is there.
This commitment gives Utah momentum, but particularly with the offensive linemen they’re in pursuit of. Utah will continue to push for fellow offensive linemen Lincoln Mageo, Ian Aloisio, Tye Kennedy, Damian Anyasodo, Gecova Doyal, and Amaziah Siale.
Mageo and Doyal were also part of the visit with Stewart, giving Utah an added presence to recruit those two. Kennedy and Anyasodo will officially visit the Salt Lake City this weeend, while Siale has been a big priority for Utah and will visit at the end of the month.
Sire Stewart’s commitment is not just another name on Utah’s 2027 board. It is the first real proof point from the Utes’ opening official visit weekend under Scalley.
Utah identified him early, got him to campus and closed. That is what good recruiting operations are supposed to do.
For Stewart, the commitment gives him a clear developmental home in a program that has long valued offensive line play. For Utah, it adds another piece to a 2027 class that needs to reflect the new regime’s roster-building vision.
The Utes have always believed in winning up front. Stewart’s commitment shows that message is still central to how Utah plans to build.
SALT LAKE CITY — Lucas Horns points over a fence on Main Street toward an empty lot with a blue shipping container on it, tucked between downtown Salt Lake City’s tallest buildings.
That container, he explains, will serve as a makeshift bar on Thursdays and Fridays through the remainder of summer, set up next to a live music stage and a space that will be dedicated to various lawn games for people of all ages. The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art will provide some art as part of an outdoor sculpture and food and drink venue combination aimed to liven up an otherwise dead space.
“Our hope is just to add to the ecosystem,” said Horns, program director for the Blocks, a joint venture between Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County to develop arts and culture programs within the downtown area.
The Blocks is launching what it calls the “Art Garten” in the lot of the old Utah Pantages Theater, 144 S. Main, beginning this week. It’s a free event that blends a beer garden with live music, art and games for all ages.
A DJ will be spinning hits from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, while live music from the steps of the Eccles Theater across the street will fill the air during the same hours on Friday. A rotating list of DJs and live bands will fill in the space during the same hours twice a week for the next few months.
The event will include a rotating food truck lineup, along with cornhole, giant chess and other lawn games for people of all ages. The Blocks didn’t want to compete with bars and restaurants, so the hours hit around happy hour, while also being friendly for people with families, Horns said.
“We were interested in adding something new to downtown,” he told KSL. “There aren’t a lot of spaces where families can go, and the parents can grab a beer and hang out while their kids play lawn games. That’s kind of a rarity in Utah, and especially downtown, so I think we’re filling an important niche.”
At the same time, it livens up a piece of Main Street that’s been lifeless for years.
The Utah Pantages Theater was demolished in 2022, amid a last-second effort to preserve the century-old building. Salt Lake leaders approved a $0 sale of the building to international real estate firm Hines and local developer Joel LaSalle in 2019, setting the stage for a proposed 31-story residential high-rise on Main Street.
However, the project stalled with the market. “Unprecedented market changes,” such as record inflation, emerged at approximately the same time as the theater was demolished, making it difficult to secure financing for the project off the ground, a spokesperson for Hines told KSL in 2024.
The situation hasn’t changed much since then, leaving Main Street with a vacant lot blocked off by a large wooden board for years. Some of the lessons from “Open Streets” and other downtown activation events helped piece together an event to use the space while it remains vacant.
“We’re excited just to be able to do a pop-up park like that in that location on Main Street, with programming unlike anything else we’ve done on Main Street,” said Dee Brewer, director of the Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance. “I’m really excited to see how the public responds.”
Hines cleared the space for the event, which will continue on Thursdays and Fridays through the end of September. Horns and Brewer say they expect the venue to return next year and potentially longer, depending on how long the tower project remains on pause.
It may not be the perfect solution to a development holdup, but they believe it’s an upgrade from the current situation.
“A blank, empty wall is never good for walkability or for the urban environment,” Horns said.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
SALT LAKE CITY — A law designed to prevent so-called “dumpster babies” is now 25 years old — and one of the individuals it was designed to save is now close to the same age.
Utah‘s Newborn Safe Haven law was designed to give pregnant moms a safe alternative where they could leave a baby they could not or would not be able to care for. The original sponsors of the bill say they don’t know how many children have been saved over the years, but one of them, Sam Peterson, was on hand to mark Monday’s special anniversary.
He said the law means everything to him.
“It is something that has given me my life! It’s my privilege to be a part of this law,” Sam said.
He stood next to his mother, Heather Peterson, who said she gets emotional talking about the law allowing her and her husband to adopt Sam.
“We feel like a miracle happened. We feel like you came to us in the most amazing way and you have an amazing story and we think it’s important that other people hear it,” she said.
Heather and Sam agreed that the Newborn Safe Haven allowed them to become a family.
It was a bill originally sponsored by former Utah Senator Patrice Arent a quarter century ago. Arent said she felt compelled to act after hearing too many stories about so-called “dumpster babies.”
“Babies that had been left to die in unsafe places like dumpsters or public toilets,” Arent explained, “Or even someone who left their baby in a drawer in their bedroom in Cottonwood Heights. I heard these stories and I just knew I had to try to find a way to provide a safe alternative.”
So Arent, a Democrat, worked with former Republican lawmaker John Valentine to sponsor and help pass Utah’s Newborn Safe Haven law.
Arent said it was a true bipartisan collaboration.
“It allows our birth parents to legally give up custody of an infant. It’s anonymous and it’s in a hospital. There will be no questions asked, and the baby then ends up in a safe, loving home,” she said.
Less than a year after the law went into effect, Sam’s birth mother left him at a Utah hospital. Heather said she and her husband adopted him three days later. Sam is now 24.
“We are living proof that Safe Haven works, because we didn’t know anything about his birth mom… It was like he just dropped out of heaven,” Heather said.
Sam said he is eternally grateful.
“It’s given me a family, it’s given me friends, it’s given me an opportunity to go to college. Day three, I was with my mom, and so she will always be my mother, and I will always cherish that,” he said.
Sam said he will be graduating next year from BYU with an engineering degree.
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