When the number of fans in attendance was announced for Utah’s 198.250-197.675 win over Michigan, senior Becky Tutka was a little skeptical.
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“I went and asked [Utah co-head coach] Greg [Marsden], ‘did they just say 16,000?’,” Tutka said.
Tutka heard right — the Huntsman Center for the first time ever housed over 16,000 people.
The Red Rocks set a new Huntsman Center attendance record with 16,019 fans packing their way into the building. The previous high for the arena was 15,755, set during a Utah-BYU basketball game in 1993.
Marsden knew early this week the Red Rocks were in for a big crowd. By Tuesday Utah had already sold 14,000 tickets for the meet, and Marsden wondered what would happen if they couldn’t get everyone in the building.
The Utes got a little help from the fire marshal for that.
Marsden received an email from the marshal that said after reevaluating the arena, the maximum capacity had been raised to 16,333.
Even with the increased capacity, Utah still couldn’t fit everyone inside.
The Utah Athletics department said fans were turned away at the door and were given free upper-bowl tickets to the Pac-12 Championship that will be held in the Huntsman Center in two weeks.
“That’s kind of one of those problems you love to have,” Marsden said. “The only things I hate about it is, I hate for anybody to make the effort to get out of their house, travel up here, find a place to park — which I know is tough — and then get all the way to the door and be turned away, because you never know if you’ll get those people back or not. So as thrilled as I am with the sell out, I hope those people will come back and give it another try.”
Passing of the torch
Senior Georgia Dabritz had her coaches, teammates and the fans in an uproar when she scored a perfect 10.00 on bars. Dabritz didn’t allow the moment to get to her and stayed cool and collected. It was, after all, her fifth 10.00 of the year.
However, she wasn’t so calm when freshman Kari Lee received a 10.00 from one judge on beam.
Dabritz had moved to where she could see the scores come in, and when Lee’s 10.00 was posted, she started jumping and screaming in celebration.
“It was so exciting to see anybody get that kind of score out there,” Dabritz said, “especially on an event like beam. It’s so hard to get a 10.00 on beam, and we haven’t seen a score like that since my whole time I’ve been here. So to see that come up tonight I was so excited for her, and especially as a freshman, it just shows how strong she is.”
With it being Senior Night, did the moment represent the passing of the torch?
“It could be,” Dabritz said. “All those girls have total potential to get 10s everywhere.”
Marsden gets emotional
During the final event on Friday the seniors were seen fanning their eyes and holding back tears. They weren’t the only ones.
Marsden was also getting teary eyed, and it wasn’t the first time that day either.
“When I greeted their parents that’s always emotional for me, because I am so grateful,” Marsden said. “I am a parent and I know how big of a thing it is to trust somebody with their child, and for most of them they are coming all the way across the country and to trust us with their daughters is emotional for me. So I teared up a little bit like I am now, and then right at the end on floor when each of them finished up.”