With three events behind them, Red Rock seniors Nina Kim and Kristina Baskett seemed poised to battle it out for all-around honors on the floor.
It was junior Jamie Deetscreek, however, who walked away with the all-around title when it was all said and done. Even more impressive is that it was Deetscreek’s first time on floor for Utah, and therefore her first time competing in the all-around.
“I was nervous, but I was really excited because I’ve worked really hard at floor this year,” Deetscreek said. “I knew I was ready, but I was still nervous.”
Deetscreek led the No. 2 ranked Red Rocks to their first win of the season over the No. 4 Bruins of UCLA with an all-around score of 39.1.
“My hard work is finally starting to show,” Deetscreek said. “It felt good to make all my routines.”
After sweeping the vault and uneven bars, the Red Rocks went on to lose the balance beam and floor routines, but still managed to edge the Bruins 196.175 to 196.075.
“Up until the last few floor routines I was very pleased,” said Utah head coach Greg Marsden. “But I expected some mistakes.”
After starting off strong, both Baskett and Kim ran into trouble on their first floor routines of the year, but it was still enough to send the Bruins home with a loss in their first meet of the season.
“Ninety percent of (the meet) was really good,” Baskett said. “We expected some mistakes in the first meet of the year, we were throwing some big stuff on floor, we started off with the routines we want to be to be doing at the end of the year and we just had some misjudgments.”
The mistakes are not uncommon for any team in a season that usually sees the gymnasts build to a crescendo.
“It was a lot of fun,” Kim said. “At least now we know what we need to work on when we get back into the gym.”
For freshmen Stephanie McAllister and Cortni Beers, Friday night was their first collegiate action and both showed a lot of promise8212;McAllister on vault and floor and Beers on uneven bars and beam.
“Cortni did a reasonably good job,” Marsden said. “It’s going to take people time to get comfortable with this and learn their roles. Stephanie McAllister was unbelievable tonight, she really hit the ground running.”
But the already short-handed Red Rocks took yet another hit Friday night when junior Beth Rizzo had to be carried off the floor after falling on her floor routine. The early diagnosis is a badly sprained ankle, but only time will tell just how severe the injury is.
Next up for the Red Rocks is a trip to Athens, Ga. where they spent a week last April in the 2008 National Championships. There, they will take on the defending national champions, the Georgia Bulldogs, who are currently ranked No. 1 in the country.
Tyler CobbJamie Deetscreek scored a 9.825 on her first floor exercise as a member of the Utah team. That gave her an all-around score of 39.10 and the first all-around title of the season.