With the sixth largest crowd in school history on site for their meet last weekend against Georgia, the No. 5 Red Rocks clinched two attendance records once again. Not only did they average the most fans per meet in women’s gymnastics in 2014, but they took home the title for all women’s NCAA sports.
The 15,224 fans at the Huntsman Center Saturday also were enough to push Utah’s season average to a total of 14,376 fans per meet, a new school and NCAA gymnastics record.
“It’s incredible,” said co-head coach Megan Marsden. “It’s hard to believe that the community has wrapped its arms around our program the way it has for a number of years.”
Marsden gives her partner in crime and co-head coach most of the credit for the support they receive at Utah, but she also recognizes the loyal fans as a paramount piece to the puzzle.
“I do give Greg a lot of credit for the way he has worked over time to build the fan support,” Marsden said. “Those same efforts done in another community may not get that result, so I have to give credit to our great fans that are so willing to continue to support our program.”
Performing great for 198
Among the many featured storylines in Utah’s meet against the Gym Dogs, perhaps the most important was that the team broke the 198-point barrier. The Red Rocks have scored in the 197 range in seven meets this season, but they were hampered by poor beam performances trying to reach 198 — a feat that has only been accomplished by four other teams this season.
Thanks to a season-best score on beam against Georgia, Utah posted a 198.025, the fourth-highest score in school history.
“[Getting 198] is not something we’ve talked about specifically, but I know we wanted to improve our beam score,” said junior Tory Wilson. “It just turned out that our overall score improved a lot, which is really great for us.”
As the beam coach, Megan Marsden was happy to see her team get the high score and admitted beam has been the apparatus holding her team back throughout the season.
“That has been the one missing link to some bigger scores this year,” she said. “It’s quite amazing we’ve had some of the scores we’ve had with beam really not even participating very well.”
Getting things done as No. 1
The seedings for this weekend’s Pac-12 Championships have come out, and Utah has claimed the top spot. The Red Rocks will travel to Berkeley, Calif. as the No. 1 overall seed in hopes of becoming Pac-12 champions for the first time since joining the conference.
“I think our team has really earned that position,” Marsden said. “I’m proud of them that they have earned that even with some struggles on beam and a meet here or there that we didn’t win. They have earned it.”
Despite being the top seed, Utah knows its conference is one of the best in the nation and that competition will be fierce. The championships will be split into two separate meets, with the Red Rocks being joined by UCLA, Stanford and Oregon State. The other four teams will face each other in the second session.
“We’re excited to go against all the other teams,” said senior Mary Beth Lofgren. “All the teams there are good, but the teams in our section are really good, so we are just really excited to go against them again and be in that conference.”
[email protected]