Red Rocks show resilience to claim first Big 12 championship, BYU finishes 4th

WEST VALLEY CITY — The Red Rocks were well on their way to capturing their first Big 12 title going into the third rotation of the conference championship meet.

With the beam team up next, there was little doubt the Red Rocks could extend an already sizable lead. But in the third spot, the always consistent Makenna Smith fell off the beam during her acro series in a rare mistake.

Smith quickly hopped back onto the beam and finished it with a stuck landing, but it meant Utah needed to hit on their final three gymnasts to avoid erasing all the momentum from the previous two rotations.

Against Arizona State in February, Utah's beam team crumbled under pressure after an early fall — as gymnast after gymnast made mistakes — that led to the Red Rocks scoring a 48.200, which was the lowest event score for the school since 2016.

Saturday night wasn't going to be a repeat of the Arizona State meet.

Grace McCallum stepped up and got the team back on course — even with a few missteps of her own — with a 9.90 before freshman Avery Neff and Ana Padurariu closed out the event with back-to-back 9.950 score.

Neff's was good enough that one of the four judges returned a 10.0 score, eliciting loud cheers from the pro-Utah crowd at the Maverik Center.

"I just kind of relied on my confidence and that I knew what I was doing," Neff said. "My gymnastics is not Makenna's gymnastics, so I just do what I know how to do, do what I do in gym, do what I do at practice."

"We talk a lot about as a team that each routine is a fresh start, whether individually or as a team, and that's the exact mindset that I approached going into it," Padurariu added. "I had full confidence in Grace and Avery going before me, too, that they were really going to go out there and give it all they got. And that was all I could do, as well."

The resilient effort steadied the rotation — and was even a meet high with a 49.600 score — to leave no doubt going into the final rotation who the Big 12 champs were.

And if there needed to be any further proof, the Red Rocks closed out floor with a 49.450 and a nice rebound effort by Smith to claim a Big 12 floor title with a 9.925 to win the meet and conference title with a 197.775 score.

The score was also good enough to lock Utah into the No. 4 spot going into the regional seeding.

"Just really excited for the team tonight, our first Big 12 championships that we were a part of," Utah head coach Carly Dockendorf said. "We came in here to win, and I felt like we executed that really well. ... Earlier this year, when we had a mistake, we didn't come back nearly as strong as we did today."

Utah was far from perfect in its execution Saturday night — the team mostly struggled to get sticks — but Dockendorf said she believes her team is "exactly where we need to be" going into regionals and nationals.

"We want to be peaking at the right time and not too early, and still leaving some room for us to improve," she said. "We've got about four weeks to go, so I just think that their confidence is building, and their performance every time that they're out there, and showing that they can have the right mindset we need to be able to be at our best when it counts the most."

With the Big 12 championship, the Red Rocks also got some additional hardware as every event had at least one member of the Red Rocks earn a share of an individual title.

On top of that, McCallum was named the Big 12 gymnast of the year and Neff was named the Big 12 newcomer of the year, cementing an already dominate night for the Red Rocks.

"Even though we're conference champions, I know that our whole team is still going to be a little — not irritated, but just know that we can do better, and I think it's going to push us to do even better at regionals and nationals," Neff said. "And so I think you're only going to see more come out of us."

Neff narrowly missed out on her first all-around title (39.500) but was topped by McCallum, who won the title with a 39.550.

Arizona (196.700) finished the day as runner-up, with Denver (196.400), BYU (196.275), Arizona State (195.975), Iowa State (195.775) and West Virginia (194.875).

Team scores

No. 4 Utah

• Vault: 49.325
• Bars: 98.700 (49.375)
• Beam: 148.300 (49.600)
• Floor: 197.775 (49.450)

Denver

• Bars: 48.900
• Beam: 98.025 (49.125)
• Floor: 147.175 (49.150)
• Vault: 196.400 (49.225)

Arizona

• Beam: 49.175
• Floor: 98.300 (49.125)
• Vault: 147.400 (49.100)
• Bars: 196.700 (49.300)

Arizona State

• Floor: 49.000
• Vault: 97.825 (48.825)
• Bars: 146.850 (49.025)
• Beam: 195.975 (49.125)

Red Rocks scores

1st Rotation: Vault (49.325)

• Ella Zirbes: 9.850
• Grace McCallum: 9.900
• Avery Neff: 9.825
• Ashley Glynn: 9.900
• Makenna Smith: 9.850
• Zoe Johnson: 9.225

2nd Rotation: Bars (49.375)

• Makenna Smith: 9.925
• Ashley Glynn: 9.850
• Avery Neff: 9.850
• Amelie Morgan: 9.875
• Ella Zirbes: 9.875
• Grace McCallum: 9.825

3rd Rotation: Beam (49.600)

• Amelie Morgan: 9.875
• Camie Winger: 9.925
• Makenna Smith: 9.300
• Grace McCallum: 9.900
• Avery Neff: 9.950
• Ana Padurariu: 9.950

4th Rotation: Floor (49.450)

• Ashley Glynn: 9.850
• Ella Zirbes: 9.875
• Avery Neff: 9.875
• Jaylene Gilstrap: 9.875
• Makenna Smith: 9.925
• Grace McCallum: 9.900

Related topics