With the regular season coming to a close after a second-place finish at the Pac-12 Championships, the Utah gymnastics team is now setting its sights on postseason action, which begins next Saturday with the Salt Lake City NCAA Regional.
Even though the Red Rocks are the top seed in their group for this NCAA Regional, it won’t be an easy road to the National Championships in Fort Worth, Texas, with a lot of familiar faces in their group ready to knock the team off the top of the podium.
This includes the Red Rocks once again facing their Pac-12 rivals UCLA and Oregon State, as well as in-state team SUU, who they faced earlier in the season. The group rounds out with Illinois and another in-state rival, Utah State.
There will also be four at-large all-arounders and eight specialists competing in this region.
After Utah earned the top seed with its fifth-place finish in the regular season, the team will be welcomed back with open arms to the Huntsman Center, where it is expected to have a massive boost with the home-gym advantage. With that, however, comes extra pressure to earn another berth in the Super Six.
Red Rocks earn awards
The end of the regular season and Pac-12 competition brings individual awards and honors for Utah. Being one of the top teams in the country, the Red Rocks took home some individual hardware for the team’s best performers over the course of the season.
This includes Kassandra Lopez earning Specialist of the Year, Sabrina Schwab earning Freshman of the Year and Breanna Hughes being the Gymnastics Scholar Athlete of the Year in the Pac-12.
Three Red Rocks also brought Pac-12 individual titles home with them from the Pac-12 Championships — Hughes winning the all-around and vault, Tiffani Lewis tying for first on floor and Baely Rowe taking home a first-place finish on beam.
With the second-place finish in the conference championships, the team itself didn’t reach its ultimate goal of winning a third-straight Pac-12 title. But Hughes, Schwab and Lopez made the most of the season, which helped them stay up with the best of the best.
Lopez, who took home one of the biggest awards, was really pleased with how the season came to a close, including the challenge of leading a young team against the tough opposition they faced over the course of three months.
“I think [this season] has been fun,” Lopez said. “We really meshed well together and had a lot of fun. I think it’s been a really great season. It’s also been nice to lead the younger girls because this is what they’re going to have to go through in a couple years, so it’s been fun.”
Fighters ready for revenge
Now, knowing what’s next for the Red Rocks, the team is using this week to prep for what is expected to be a challenging night.
This includes the fact that the Red Rocks will once again go head-to-head with UCLA, who stripped their hopes of winning a three-peat Pac-12 championship. Many thoughts will be lingering in the gymnasts’ minds about the loss, but they are hoping to bounce back where it counts most.
Co-head coach Tom Farden also agrees the team is disappointed by earning second-best to the Bruins, but he said the team is hungry to get back on top after a slow start in the conference championships.
“Obviously we’re disappointed that we didn’t win the meet because our hope and expectation is to win it every year,” Farden said. “This team is full of fighters.”
The Utah coaching staff will be taking their time all week to make sure the same mistakes that cost the Red Rocks the lead in Seattle won’t happen again. This time, a bigger prize is on the line.
@Chad_Marquez