Red Rocks Close Out The Regular Season With 'Victory' Over Utah State
Apparently it's possible to both win and lose at the same time.
Following No. 5 Utah's 197.275-196.500 victory over in-state foe No. 20 Utah State on Friday night, the Red Rocks weren't exactly walking out of the Jon M. Huntsman with full smiles and feeling good about themselves.
“This was probably our worst team performance (of the season),” senior Sydney Soloski said. “This was not an indication of what we are capable of. Our team didn’t show up tonight, and it is really disappointing to see how much hard work is done in the gym and it is not translating over.”
Soloski once again took home a win the floor routine with a 9.95, continuing her recent run of dominance as the anchor for the Red Rocks. Maile O'Keefe won both the balance beam and uneven bars, as well as the all-around competition while Alexia Burch and Lucy Stanhope tied for the win on the vault.
Despite the high scores from the victors, the lows is what really held Utah back. Scores as low as 9.650 were counted in their total, we well as falls on both the vault and floor.
“Really disappointed in our performance tonight,” Utah head coach Tom Farden said. “I know we came away with the win, but there were way too many mistakes that we left out there.”
It was the sort of performance that does not inspire a lot of confidence moving forward into the postseason, especially when your goal is to win a national title.
“We have some stuff to figure out in the next week,” Soloski said. “This was 100 percent mental mistakes. This was people not having enough heart on the floor. This was people not trusting in their gymnastics.”
The Red Rocks are chasing their chance at immortality, but fully understand that what they showed on the floor Friday night isn't near enough to achieve that goal.
Oklahoma, Florida, Michigan and LSU are among Utah's toughest competition, and as of now are all easily out-distancing the Red Rocks. Not only have they all scored a 197.450 or higher in their most recents, all of them have broken the 198-point barrier at some point this season — a mark the Red Rocks haven't necessarily come close too.
And that's why the meet against Utah State was such a disappointment.
The Red Rocks were hoping to come out and showcase all the hard work they've been working on in the gym, but it never came to fruition. After a great week of practice, Farden and Soloski thought the team was going to make more strides but the reverse happened instead — and nobody know why.
“There were a lot of mistakes, significant mistakes on every event,” Farden said. “You look at the score tab and you are looking at 9.2s, 9.6s and 9.7s. Every event suffered a fall or some 9.7s and that is not the expectation.”
“We had a really good week at practice, so obviously frustrated,” he added. “We definitely took a dip. We’ve trained the athletes to the best of our ability and we are still fine tuning things, but at some point, we all have to get together in the same boat and start rowing in the right direction.”
Alexia Burch, Utah Gymnastics — Courtesy of Utah Athletics
If there ever was a bright spot for the Red Rocks, it came in the form of Stanhope.
Just one week after being pulled from the all-around after what Farden described as not quite having it, the freshman from England had her best overall meet of the season as she put together her most complete performance of the year.
She posted scores of 9.900 on floor and vault and a 9.875 on beam. Her routine on beam though gave way to the most excitement as one judge gave her a 9.95, showing how bright her future really is.
“Lucy wanted this opportunity,” Farden said. “Last weekend wasn’t her best performance as a Red Rock, but she went out there (tonight) with some fire in her belly and wanted to get some work done. She really did have herself a great night. ... (She) was a pretty highly touted athlete, a national team member from Great Britain and we felt that she could roll into an all-arounder. She is fitting those expectations and doing a marvelous job for us.”
Utah will now move forward when it hosts the Pac-12 Championships on Saturday, March 20 at the Maverick Center in West Valley, Utah. It will be the Red Rocks last opportunity to put their full routines together ahead of the NCAA championships in a few weeks.
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