Continuing their season pattern full of extreme ups and downs, the No. 4 Red Rocks bounced back from their first loss of the season last Monday by beating No. 11 Oregon State, 197.575–196.450 Saturday night at the Huntsman Center. Utah’s score was its second highest of the year.
Perhaps more importantly, the Red Rocks had zero falls throughout the entire evening, something they hadn’t achieved all season. That included their performance on beam, where they hadn’t been clean since the season opener. Greg Marsden’s bunch scored 49.175 on the apparatus Saturday, the team’s highest mark on the event since Feb. 1 at Arizona State
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“We’ve still got work to do, but it was a step back in the right direction,” Marsden said. “I saw some things that we can do that might help us. It was a nice step. We’ve still got to get the score up a couple tenths on that event, but that’s, again, a step in the right direction.”
Georgia Dabritz in particular took a step in the right direction on beam. After a subpar performance in her season debut on the event last Monday, Dabritz posted a 9.875 against OSU. It was her lowest score of the meet, but an encouraging sign for Utah nonetheless.
“I just wanted to do the same thing that I do in practice,” Dabritz said. “I knew that before I went out there, that I just wanted to nail it. I wanted to prove to everybody, and to myself too, that I can be in this beam lineup and wanted to do all-around this year.”
Dabritz wound up winning the all-around competition Saturday with a score of 39.625. In the process, she remained undefeated on bars after scoring a 9.950 on the event. Fellow junior Tory Wilson finished just behind Dabritz in the all-around with a score of 39.500.
It wasn’t just on beam that the Red Rocks showed improvement against the Beavers, however. Utah leads the nation on vault, but reached even greater heights by posting a season-high mark of 49.625 on the evening’s first rotation. The set put the Red Rocks in control of the meet early and they never looked back.
“It’s definitely our best event,” Wilson said. “We’ve just figured out what works for us and how to use the power that we all have. It’s just a matter of finding the landing and I think that we are definitely getting better at that.”
Utah will remain home for a date on Friday against Washington at the Huntsman Center. The meet is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.
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