Utah was the best it has been all season on Senior Night

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 — the Red Rocks scored in the 197.7-197.8 range in five meets and regularly did well on three of the four events — 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.

“What a special night,” Utah head coach Carly Dockendorf said. “For 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.

“… 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 didn’t 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.”

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 — yes, the Red Rocks nearly beat the Cardinal by two points — 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.

“Tonight was really important to get that score,” Dockendorf said. “I think it provides confidence to the team, to know that they are capable of doing that.”

Defining moment

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 senior’s 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 Dockendorf’s 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, couldn’t keep it together, crying into her own hands.

“I came into today trying not to put a lot of pressure on myself,” Paulson said. “Carly asked me (before I competed) what I was going to do, and I said ‘I’m going to be calm and confident,’ like I do every single time.

“When 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 couldn’t really hold it together when I landed. I’m just really grateful for everything.”

Maile O’Keefe 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 won’t soon forget.

“She (Paulson) is an amazing beam worker. It has just been a matter of time before she got it,” O’Keefe said of Paulson. “It is quite special to just be doing my mental set and focusing on myself but also rooting for her very intently while I’m 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.”

Standout routines

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 — bars and floor — and looked capable of competing with the best all-around gymnasts in the country. And not even a year ago she wasn’t 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 Rocks’ bars lineup and other moments were it can be argued she shouldn’t 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.

Sabado’s routine was such that Dockendorf called it her favorite of the night.

“I was incredibly proud of Alani,” Dockendorf said. “She 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.

“For her to go out there and make some of those small changes that she’s been doing, that was probably one of my favorite moments from tonight, watching her hit that bar routine, knowing how much work she’s truly put in to elevate her score.”

Adjustments to make

As noted by Dockendorf, Utah on the whole wasn’t perfect, historic score aside. There were steps on landings still — particularly on vault and bars — and slight mistakes like leg separation prevented gymnasts such as McCallum from getting perfect 10s of their own.

Just look at O’Keefe’s performance — she scored a 9.850 on bars, a 9.90 on beam and a 9.925 on floor — 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 couldn’t control their landings.

Even in a floor rotation that scored a 49.700, tying the Red Rocks’ 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 takeaway

The first thing Utah’s gymnasts will say following a meet is that they don’t look at scores. Scores are out of their control. Their gymnastics aren’t.

“To be honest we weren’t 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,” Paulson said. “Obviously when we do that we are going to get the scores that we want.”

And yet, a 198.300 is the type of score that matters. As Rucker put it while looking at the score sheet after meet, “Oh, we slayed.”

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 night’s meet showed that Utah has the potential and capability to compete as well as anyone. Now the challenge is to do so consistently.

“We’ve been scoring 197.8, 197.5, in that area,” Dockendorf said. “If 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.

“We didn’t 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.”