Utah gymnastics came close to perfection but didn’t need it against Arizona State

February 23, 2020.

On that date nearly five years ago, then-Utah freshman Abby Paulson was perfect on balance beam, in the most pressure packed of situations.

The Red Rocks were on the road in Los Angeles against the rival UCLA Bruins and the meet came down to Paulson’s final routine.

Be perfect and Utah would win. Be less than perfect and the Bruins would take the victory.

Paulson, of course, was perfect, the one and only time that she, now a fifth-year senior, has been awarded a perfect 10 as a collegiate gymnast.

She’s come close many times since, with 9.975s in multiple seasons now, and Friday night in Salt Lake City against the Arizona State Devils, she came oh so close again.

Paulson received a 9.975 for her efforts on beam against the Sun Devils, the top score by any gymnast on the night, narrowly missing out on another perfect score.

Results

Team scores — Utah, 197.675; Arizona State, 196.700

Event winners

• All-around — Makenna Smith (Utah); 39.475.

• Balance beam — Abby Paulson (Utah); 9.975.

• Floor exercise — Abby Paulson (Utah), Grace McCallum (Utah), Hannah Scharf (ASU); 9.925.

• Uneven bars — Grace McCallum (Utah); 9.925.

• Vault — Ashley Glynn (Utah); 9.925

The thing is, Utah didn’t need perfection against ASU. From Paulson or anyone else. The Red Rocks didn’t even need to be at their best.

Good proved good enough.

Led by Paulson, Utah defeated Arizona State 197.675 to 196.700.

Red Rocks won every single event title, Paulson the beam, Grace McCallum the uneven bars, Ashley Glynn the vault, plus McCallum and Paulson on floor, sharing that title with Sun Devils’ star Hannah Scharf.

Utah scored a 49.325 or better on every event, topping out with a 49.500 on floor.

It was a good performance. Good enough for late January with a couple months remaining in the regular season for sure.

“This was just another consistent meet for us,” Utah head coach Carly Dockendorf said. “We saw some really good individual improvements. Still as a team not quite all moving together in the same direction.”

Added Paulson: “I’m really proud of the team. I think we came in here and showed everyone that we have been working on the details. Obviously we have room for improve, but also it was Meet Four. It is still January. I am just so excited to see where everyone can take it this season.”

Defining moment

Paulson’s beam routine was the best individual performance of the night by any gymnast, Red Rock or Sun Devil, but Utah made it known early that it was going to control the night’s proceedings thanks to a quartet of vaults.

Starting with freshman Camie Winger, followed by fellow freshman Ella Zirbes, sophomore Ashley Glynn and finally sophomore Makenna Smith, Utah reeled off two 9.875s (Winger and Zirbes), a 9.90 (Smith) and a 9.925 (Glynn) in rapid succession to start the meet.

Minutes in and Utah looked to be on top of its game. And while the vault rotation ended up the lowest scoring event of the night for the Red Rocks, it gave the team a jolt from the get go.

“I thought our vaults were really dynamic and aggressive,” Dockendorf said.

The efforts by Winger, Zirbes and Glynn, in particular were very encouraging. The potential has been there all season for those three to compete great 10.0-valued vaults, but they hadn’t yet, not in the same meet at least.

That changed Friday.

“It was cool to see the front half of the lineup to really go for it,” Dockendorf said.

Glynn’s meet-best showing was particularly impressive given she struggled with her landing throughout warmups, sitting multiple vaults down.

“My warmups definitely weren’t as I had hoped for, but me and (assistant coach Jimmy Pratt) felt confident in it,” Glynn said. “During the week I’d been hitting my vaults and landed fine. So I wasn’t worried about it.”

The vault was Glynn’s best performance as a Red Rock thus far, after she transferred in from Temple in the offseason.

And after sticking her effort she was greeted by a rousing Huntsman Center roar, the first true one of her career.

“It was really exciting,” she said. “It was surreal being out there.”

Standout routines

Individually there were plenty of routines of note for Utah.

In addition to her standout beam routine, Paulson was also excellent on floor. She was the only gymnast to score a 9.90 or better on every event they competed Friday night, on either team.

Self-assured, confident, comfortable — Paulson was it all and as it turns out that was because of a concerted effort on her part.

“That has actually been my goal this year, to come out every meet calm and confident,” Paulson said. “I’m not focused on the outcome, I’m not focusing on anything else that is happening. My words to myself have been calm and confident. I have felt more confident because that is what I keep telling myself.”

According to Dockendorf, Paulson’s newfound mindset has been every visible basically everywhere.

“Even in practice,” Dockendorf said. “She’s calm, she’s confident. She knows what she is capable of. She brings it every single day. I think she really has worked hard on letting go of trying to get a certain score or trying to prove to anyone anything. She goes out there for herself and for the team.”

Paulson wasn’t the only Red Rock to stand out, though.

In addition to the aforementioned Winger, Zirbes, Glynn and Smith, Amelie Morgan had beam routine to remember, a 9.90 to kick of the rotation.

McCallum’s floor routine was arguably the best of the night, and her routine on bars definitively was.

Throw in the best bar routine of Zirbes’ Utah career and the Red Rocks’ freshmen combined for their best overall meet thus far.

“I think it takes a little while for freshmen to adjust to the pressures of competing for a team,” Dockendorf said. “In club (gymnastics) its just, if you make a mistake it is just on you. On a team they understand if they make a mistake to is going to affect the whole team. It does take a while for freshmen to kind of adjust to that pressure, accept it, know it is okay and just go for it.”

Adjustments to make

For all the good that Utah showed against ASU, there were still plenty of mistakes made.

Jaedyn Rucker, one of two individual NCAA champions on the team, had one of the worst overall meets of her career. She struggled mightily with her landing on vault, taking multiple steps back. That mistake put pressure on Morgan to close out the lineup well, and Morgan was competing on vault for the first time in her Utah career.

Then on floor, Rucker struggled again, stepping out of bounds on her first tumbling passes, before also falling forward and nearly sitting on the ground.

It was a meet to forget, though Dockendorf noted that Rucker was fine, physically. Those kind of meets just happen.

“She’s human,” Dockendorf said. “They are entitled to have off days. Sometimes it happens. I told her, ‘This meet doesn’t define you. This is one meet of many we are going to have.’ Mistakes are going to happen. It is part of the sport. For her, it was a little bit of an off night.”

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It wasn’t just Rucker, though.

Almost the entire beam lineup was just off, miscues across the board, be it balance checks, interrupted leap series, poor dismounts.

Just an uncharacteristic showing.

“I definitely was disappointed in the overall performance of our beam lineup,” Dockendorf said. “It felt tentative, not quite what I see in workout. To have veterans out there making mistakes I don’t see every day, I think that is something we are going to have to keep working on because we need six great routines on that event.”

Overall, Paulson noted that landings could’ve been better, with Dockendorf specifying that Utah lost points on bars because of missed landings.

“We can work on landings, obviously,” Paulson said. “But those come with time. The bars landings, the beam landings. Every tenth (of a point) matters.”

The takeaway

Utah wasn’t at its best against Arizona State, nor were the Red Rocks less than great. It was, in many ways, a middle of the year meet. Some good, some bad, a lot of in between.

The Red Rocks have room for improvement and time to improve. And they know it.

Still, there were plenty of reasons for optimism. Freshmen displaying a greater comfort level, vets — at times — competing to their capabilities. Four lineups doing well in the same meet.

And the team showed yet again that it can withstand mistakes.

“Even when we had a mistake, I felt like the team kept moving forward,” Dockendorf said. “and it didn’t really affect the performance that happened afterwards.”

“It’s not going to be perfect right now,” added Paulson. “We don’t expect it to be.”