On a night when Huntsman Center faithful honored Greg Marsden for amassing 1,000 career victories, Utah earned program win No. 1,001 in convincing fashion.
The No. 4 Red Rocks had arguably their best meet of the season Friday, beating yet another ranked squad in No. 13 Arizona 197.825-194.425. Utah’s score was a season high and the second-highest score posted by any team in the nation in 2014.
“I think we are finally showing how great this team is,” said Georgia Dabritz. “It’s taken us a little while, but we are finally starting to show that we are great this year and we have been all year long. It’s coming out and we are getting ready for the postseason already.”
Dabritz was again a two-event winner, claiming the bars and floor events with a score of 9.975 on each. She also competed on vault, finishing second to teammate Tory Wilson, who won the event with a 9.975.
The team acknowledged there was a special feeling in the Huntsman Center before the meet as 13,012 fans witnessed a video and trophy presentation for Marsden, who achieved the 1,000-win milestone nine days ago at Arizona State.
“We kind of had a different energy than we normally have,” Dabritz said. “Knowing that he had his 1,000th win and seeing him out there in the beginning, we were all kind of teary-eyed when he held up his little trophy. We were all so honored to be a part of this team.”
After building a commanding lead of 1.1 points at the halfway mark of the evening, the Red Rocks moved to beam, where they underwent yet another lineup change as freshman Baely Rowe led off. Not only did the newcomer stay on the beam, but she gave the rest of the team confidence as Utah was able to count five clean routines despite a fall from Kailah Delaney.
“It takes a little time to get to know somebody, but I do think she’s going to be a solid first-up for us on that event,” Marsden said of Rowe. “She is one that seems to handle that well and not think about outcome too much. She just gets up and does her job.”
Heading to the floor for the final event of the night, the Red Rocks were in no danger of losing the meet but had the opportunity to catapult themselves into the national title conversation with a high score. Those hopes seemed to come crashing down when Mary Beth Lofgren led off by going down on one of her passes, but Utah used the fall as motivation and finished the event with a season-high score of 49.725.
“You cannot get caught up in what happened before you or what might happen after you,” Marsden said. “While you don’t like to see [a fall] happen, in some sense it can help us become mentally stronger. To see them all aggressive after the fall is hopefully something that we can take with us the rest of the season.”
Although Friday’s score was high and the routines were clean, Marsden knows there is still progress that needs to be made before the postseason comes, especially on beam.
“We talk every week about trying to get better and taking steps forward,” he said. “We’ve still got to work on beam and we’ve got to get that score up so it’s similar to the other three scores. We are making progress, but we’ve still got work to do.”
The Red Rocks will not compete again until Feb. 17 when they go on the road to Stanford.
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