Last week at the Pac-12 Championships in Corvallis, Ore., the Utes had a chance to post their best road score of the year. As it happened, Utah came up just .05 short.
That was after the Utes ended the evening with a 48.825 on beam, their second-lowest mark on the event this year. As Utah prepares for next weekend’s regional competition in Tuscaloosa, Ala., junior Mary Beth Lofgren said there’s no time to dwell on the disappointing beam finish.
“It would have been cool to say we got the Pac-12 title, but there’s always next year, and there’s still more meets during this season,” she said.
Tory Wilson, who earned first-team All-Pac-12 honors along with Georgia Dabritz and Becky Tutka, are hoping the team got the bad beam performance out of its system.
“We’ve made a lot of strides on beam this year, so I think that we know we can do it,” Wilson said. “We got the jitters out of the way, so now we can go to regionals and hopefully nationals and just rock it.”
Dabritz, Wilson and Lofgren, who was the only Ute to earn Pac-12 honors on beam when she was named to the second team, agreed the shaky performance from last weekend will not affect the Utes’ confidence going forward.
Utah’s beam scores have been up and down all season long, but gymnasts hope their score at Alabama will be closer to what they put up the last time they faced an SEC foe. That was against Florida, when the Utes earned a season-high 49.325.
Lofgren said the rotation at regionals will benefit them since beam is the second event instead of the last. But regardless of the rotation, she knows she and her teammates have to do a better job preparing for their routines.
“We tightened up,” she said. “We knew we were in the lead, and we felt the pressure, so we acted like we were under pressure. We need to be more tough throughout the meet [and not] let up.”
Dabritz said she is working to put the loss in Oregon behind her.
“For the first few days after [the Pac-12 Championships], I was pretty upset because I felt like I let my team down,” Dabritz said. “But I’m good at letting things go. I know you can’t do anything about it afterwards. The biggest thing is that you can’t change the past.”
In reality, it might not be all bad that the Utes finished the conference championships poorly. A higher score might have placed them in a tougher regional and hurt their chances of continuing to nationals. Instead, Utah is pleased with where it will compete and is ready to move forward.
Assistant coach Tom Farden said having a letdown like the one the Utes experienced in Corvallis can sometimes be a motivator. He hopes having that experience will prepare the team for the pressures of postseason competition and push them to be their best over the next few weeks.