After a season that has included many highs and lows as well as much improvement for the Utes, they have reached the point in the year where every routine carries higher stakes than usual. The Utes head to Tuscaloosa, Ala., this weekend for the NCAA Regional Tournament with a shot at nationals on the line.
Utah has been the only program to make every Super Six since the 2000 season, and co-head coach Megan Marsden knows to keep that streak alive, the team has to take the next several weeks one step at a time and not lose focus of what is right in front of them.
She has been so focused on “one week at a time,” she wasn’t even aware of the streak, and said she tends to not worry about it.
“There’s only so many things that are in our control,” Marsden said. “Making it to Super Six takes a variety of things to happen, some of which are out of our control. You’ve got to be in the Super Six when they determine the champion, so that is where we’d like to be, but we’ll take it one meet at a time.”
It would certainly be an upset if the second-seeded Utes didn’t advance past regionals this weekend, but they do need to put on a top-notch performance to secure their spot in nationals. Every one of the teams they are going up against on Saturday has been to nationals before and has the ability to put up a high score.
Top-seeded and two-time defending national champion Alabama and No. 9 Utah are obviously the favorites, but No. 15 Denver is not far behind and has scored a 197.2 in a meet this year. The other schools — Kent State, BYU and Iowa State — haven’t come close to a 197 yet this year, but all have sufficient talent to have visions of an upset. That’s why Marsden wants each of her gymnasts to focus on what they do every day in practice and not leave the door open for a potential upset.
“We need to understand that in our quest to try to be great on four events, there may be a mistake here or there, but we need to not let that snowball,” she said. “We need to remember as a group that we’re going in there to do what we train to do every day, and that we probably won’t be perfect. If there’s a little mistake, the next person needs to just do what they always do and not adjust how they approach their routine.”
Georgia Dabritz, the defending regional bar champion, said she hopes all the work they’ve put in on beam will pay off after posting a disappointing beam score at the Pac-12 championship. But both she and Marsden know they need to maintain the one-step-at-a-time mentality and do what they have done all season.
“We had a great meet against Florida, and at Pac-12s we were phenomenal on three events,” Marsden said. “We weren’t horrible on beam, we didn’t let that event turn into a horrible event, but we can do it better than we did. I think we need to build on that because we’ve done a nice job through the season of getting better.”