The U gymnastics team has had a tough schedule this year, but this weekend the gymnasts will compete in their first quadrangular meet. The home meet will include two teams, Florida and Stanford, who competed in last season’s Super Six.

No. 6 Florida, Stanford and Cal will be in the Huntsman Center Friday night and the Utes will get a great preview of the postseason experience a full four weeks before regionals.

“I didn’t really do it intentionally,” Marsden said. “It was really just Florida’s return meet and then Stanford called. They wanted to have the feel of the post season. The meet should be very close because Florida is very good, as is Stanford.”

The Gators have only lost one meet all year and that was in the first meet of the year against No. 1 LSU. Since the loss, Florida has defeated Alabama and Georgia. The Gators are one of the hottest teams in the country, but still haven’t hit the 197-point scoring mark, though they came very close last week.

Against Kentucky, the Gators scored 196.925, thrashing the Wildcats.

Stanford has not been as good as they usually have been. The team is unranked and has a meet record of 2-4. The scoring has usually been in the 192s, which is not even in the same league as either Florida or Utah.

Cal is not as good as the Utes, and shouldn’t have a chance in the meet, considering their past meets have not gone so well. They scored in the 180-point-range against ASU and have only won two meets this year, both of which were against lesser competition than the Utes and Gators.

“It should be a great competition, like all of ours have been,” Marsden said. “It will go to the very end and we will have to be on the top of our game.”

After this meet, the Utes will have played most of the tough teams in the country.

Marsden added that he loves the tough schedule because it tests the team and gives them a good range of where they are in relation to the other top teams in the country.

“That’s one reason why we try to grade the schedule like that,” Marsden said. “We are seeing most of the good teams, with the exception of Alabama and LSU.”

The other great thing about the meet, is that it is the same format as the postseason, with each team rotating event to event.

“It’s a great test because there are other things going on during the meet,” Marsden said.

The team is on a two-game losing streak, but with the way they competed last week, they aren’t lacking confidence.

“I think we are at a very good place and I think they are very confident,” Marsden said. I think they can compete with anyone in the country on a given meet. They realize if we make mistakes, we can get beat.

In a meet with two good teams and a solid third squad, the Utes will not only have a good test, but also a small sampling of what they saw in the future.

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