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 wrongful death lawsuit filed in Utah alleges a counterfeit airbag turned a routine crash into a fatal explosion that killed a teenage driver within minutes.
Alexia De La Rosa graduated from Hunter High School in May of 2025. On July 30, 2025, she was involved in a crash.
The lawsuit alleges that when the vehicle’s driver-side airbag deployed, it detonated and sent metal and plastic shrapnel into the cabin.
A large, jagged piece of metal struck Alexia in the chest, and she died minutes later, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit, filed by Morgan & Morgan in Utah’s Third Judicial District Court, was brought on behalf of Tessie De La Rosa, as personal representative of the estate of her 17-year-old daughter.
The defendants are AutoSavvy Holdings Inc., AutoSavvy Dealerships LLC, and AutoSavvy Management Company LLC.
Morgan & Morgan alleges that the Hyundai Sonata had previously been declared a total loss after a 2023 crash and issued a salvage title. The suit claims AutoSavvy later purchased the vehicle and had it repaired — during which counterfeit, non-compliant, and defective airbag components were allegedly installed — before reselling it to the De La Rosa family.
The complaint further alleges that AutoSavvy knew or should have known the vehicle contained counterfeit and nonfunctional airbag components when it was sold.
“This is the third wrongful death lawsuit we have filed involving alleged counterfeit airbags that we believe turned survivable crashes into fatal incidents,” Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan said in a statement. “No life should be cut short because a corporation puts profits above safety.”
Attorney Andrew Parker Felix, who is leading the case, said the firm is committed to uncovering how allegedly illegal airbag inflators enter the stream of commerce and are installed in vehicles sold to consumers.
“To make this perfectly clear, these are not supposed to be in the United States at all,” Felix said. “They are not approved for use in any vehicle that’s being driven in the United States.”
“They don’t have approval from any governmental agency to be installed in vehicles that are driven within the United States and regulated here,” he added.
Morgan & Morgan says it is investigating at least three additional deaths involving other defendants and alleged counterfeit airbags.
KUTV 2News reached out to AutoSavvy multiple times by email and phone. We were told a member of the company’s legal team would be in touch, but as of publication we have not received a response.
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(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah President Taylor Randall speaks on campus during an event on Feb. 7.
University of Utah President Taylor Randall is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump this week.
Randall is expected to be among several attendees at a White House roundtable meeting on Friday to discuss solutions for the rapidly evolving landscape of college athletics with the president, a U. spokesperson said.
The meeting could be postponed, however, due to the war in Iran. As of Monday, “the odds of it happening this week are 50-50 at best,” according to Yahoo Sports.
If the roundtable happens as scheduled, the guest list includes several current and former notable figures in sports, including NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, golf legend Tiger Woods and former Alabama head coach Nick Saban.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed in a social media post on X that he would be in attendance as well.
“Thank you [President Donald Trump] for inviting me to participate, and for your commitment to addressing challenges in college sports,” Cox said on X. “[Taylor Randall] is a great university leader who will work with us on solutions for this critical issue.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah President Taylor Randall speaks on campus on Feb. 7.
Earlier this year, Randall was called on by the federal House Committee on Education and Workforce to schedule a briefing to discuss the school’s planned private-equity partnership with Otro Capital, according to a report from Sportico.
The Utes announced their proposal in December of last year, which is a first-of-its-kind agreement between a university’s athletic department and a private equity company.
Utah’s deal with Otro has yet to be finalized. In a Feb. 10 interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Randall said the university is “still just working through all of the issues systematically.”
“We want to do this in the right way to set both of us up for future success,” he added.
The move is expected to infuse hundreds of millions of dollars into the U.’s athletic department to help sustain the financial future of the program with rising deficits across the industry.
“I don’t think any of us would prefer to be in this situation right now,” Randall said in a faculty senate meeting in January. “But it just is what we’re facing.”
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — The 2025-2026 winter season isn’t quite over, but it’s no secret that it’s been a rough one when it comes to snow. Right now, statewide snowpack numbers are hovering around 60% of the median.
But you don’t have to know those numbers to understand what a strange winter it’s been.
“It’s kind of good,” said Carrie Stewart, who lives in Salt Lake City. “I mean, I like it because I like a milder climate. But I realize this summer is going to be hard.”
“I’m not sad I’m not shoveling,” said Sally Humphreys of Salt Lake City. “But it’s definitely worrying.”
State water officials are also worried. The clock is ticking to bulk up those snowpack numbers.
“We’re running out of time to get the snowpack that we need,” said Jordan Clayton, supervisor of the Utah Snow Survey. “We have about 40 or so days until our typical snowpack peak.”
There is still some time to make up lost ground, but the odds aren’t great. Clayton estimates a 10% chance of reaching normal by the end of the season.
“Those are terrible odds,” he said.
In fact, the odds of having a record low snowpack are greater, sitting at 20%. It’s a grim reality that has officials looking toward the summer anxiously.
“I would expect to see watering restrictions outdoors for a lot of places,” said Laura Haskell, Utah’s drought coordinator.
It’s unknown what the next few weeks will bring, but if Haskell had to guess, she doesn’t see state reservoirs filling up much from where they are now.
“In the spring when that runoff hits, we do get a noticeable peak in our reservoir storage,” Haskell said. “The water just starts coming in. But this year, we don’t anticipate getting that.”
Haskell says we have enough reservoir storage to likely make it through the summer, but there are other implications to worry about.
Our autumn season was pretty wet. That led to decent soil moisture levels, which can then lead to higher vegetation growth.
“If we then have a snowpack that melts out really early, we’ll have a longer than normal summer, if you will, with forage growth that might dry out, and so that’s kind of a bad recipe for promoting fire hazard,” Clayton said.
Utahns have dealt with low snowpack levels in the past. Many Utahns are familiar with their lawn turning brown because of water restrictions.
“We’ll probably just let it go that nice, sandy, golden color that it gets in the summer in a dry climate,” said Dea Ann Kate, who lives in Cottonwood Heights.
As we wait to see what the next few weeks bring, people like Carrie Stewart are just reflecting on an unusual winter.
“It is worrying,” she said. “We need snow. We’ve only shoveled once this season, and that’s very unusual.”
Water officials are now hoping for something else unusual: climbing out of the snowpack hole that’s been created.
“But there are no times going back where the snowpack totals for the state were close to where they are right now, and we ended up actually at a normal peak,” Clayton said. “So while it’s possible, it’s very unlikely.”
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