Robarts ready to go
Utah sophomore Kyndal Robarts is ready and to make her season debut in competition this weekend in the Red Rocks’ trip to Corvallis, Ore., to take on the Oregon State Beavers.
Robarts suffered a shoulder tear in December while preparing for the upcoming season, but the San Marcos, Texas native says come Friday, she’ll be where she needs to be to compete.
“I feel like I’m ready to go,” Robarts said.
Utah fans got their first glimpse of Robarts last weekend when the Red Rocks hosted the No. 25 Washington Huskies. Robarts competed in exhibition on both vault and beam, scoring 9.825 and 9.775 respectively.
“I think it went really well,” Robarts said. “It was nice to be out there and compete again.”
Final lineups will not be decided until the day before the meet, but all indications are that Robarts will lead off the Red Rocks on Friday night, on the balance beam, their final event.
Red Rocks season tickets on the rise
It’s another season and another attendance record for the University of Utah gymnastics team.
The 2009 season marks the first time in school history that more than 5,000 season tickets have been sold, the record being 5,612.
The Red Rocks are no strangers to attendance records8212;Utah owns every collegiate gymnastics attendance record ranging from average attendance since 1992 (12,840) to the largest crowd for a meet (15,447), which took place last season when the Red Rocks hosted BYU.
With two home meets behind them already this season, Utah has averaged a crowd of 13,016, which is good enough for top in the nation once again.
With four home meets left on the schedule, Utah will look to add to its already impressive streak of winning 24 of the past 27 national attendance records.
Work left to be done
Although Utah’s team score has increased with each week and event, there is still plenty of room for improvement, as anyone in the Dumke Gymnastics Center can tell you. Kinks are expected this early on in the season, as the team works to peak at just the right time before it travels to Lincoln, Neb., in April for the National Championships.
The Red Rocks came out swinging against UCLA, posting their season’s best on vault and beam in the first meet of the year. It was a rocky start on floor for head coach Greg Marsden’s squad8212;who had a few stumbles in the season opener8212;but like the team score, the score on floor has increased each week.
If there was a kink in Utah’s armor during the past two meets, it would have to be the balance beam. With a score of 48.950 against Georgia and 48.925 against Washington, the beam has been the lowest score for the Red Rocks in consecutive meets, something Marsden knows they will have to work on before Friday night.
“We struggled a little bit,” Marsden said. “We just didn’t execute well (on beam), so hopefully we can get that done this Friday. We’ll need to get it done because that will be our last event and I’m sure it will come down to that event.”
