It’s easy to argue that no team in the Pac-12 heads into the conference championships this weekend in Corvallis, Ore., with more momentum than Utah (10-2-1). The Utes tallied the third-highest score in the nation last week in their home finale and beat No. 2 Florida in the process.
But along with Oregon State and Stanford, the Utes will be facing a UCLA team that beat them in the season-opener in Los Angeles. What might be more important to Utah, though, is the loss it took against the Bruins in last year’s Pac-12 championships that came by the slimmest of margins — five-hundredths of a point.
The two teams look to be evenly matched again this year. UCLA has been ranked ahead of Utah for much of the season, but last week’s 198.125 helped bump Utah’s Regional Qualifying Score ahead of UCLA’s by .01 for the No. 1 seed in the championships.
But while UCLA and Utah have led the conference throughout the season, Utah co-head coach Megan Marsden made it clear there are other teams that also demand attention.
“I think that all four teams that are competing in our last session [can win],” Marsden said. “Even including University of Arizona in the afternoon session, they are a pretty good team too. But I feel like anybody can win in that night session for sure.”
The championships are split into two meets based on seeding, with seeds 5-8 in the first session and seeds 1-4 in the second. The afternoon session will feature No. 8 California, No. 7 Arizona State, No. 6 Washington and No. 5 Arizona, while No. 4 Stanford and No. 3 Oregon State will join top seeds UCLA and Utah in the evening meet.
This season, the Utes have beaten all four of the lower seeds except Washington, which they tied with in Seattle on Feb. 15 in the Utes’ second-lowest scoring meet this year.
Utah has also beaten both Stanford and OSU at home, though the victory over the Beavers was in a nonconference quad meet. Oregon State is considered a dark-horse pick to win the meet because they have competed well at home and, like Utah, earned a season-high score last week, a 197.275.
“Oregon State is on their home floor, so I would certainly give them the edge in terms of being comfortable and having the crowd behind them,” Marsden said. “I think it’ll be an incredible meet because I do think it’s four top teams going head to head.”
But the championship will likely come down to the Bruins or the Utes, with Utah trying to prove that the season-low score it posted against UCLA in January was little more than the result of first-meet jitters.
Meanwhile UCLA will look to extend its winning streak over the Utes, being led by the nation’s top-ranked all-arounder Vanessa Zamarripa. Her RQS of 39.63 is second to none, and she is ranked in the top five in every event except beam.
The Utes will also be looking to build on their last two road scores, which have been a source of pride after they suffered through some early-season road hiccups. After having success at BYU and Georgia, they don’t seem too worried about a hostile environment.
“I think we proved that [it’s not an issue] when we went to BYU with that tri-meet,” said Lia Del Priore. “We did really well in that competition … So I think we’re ready for that.”
Both championship meets will be televised live on the Pac-12 Networks. The afternoon session will start at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday and the evening session will start at 8 p.m.