Jaylene Gilstrap of Utah celebrates after performing her floor routine during the Pac-12 Women’s Gymnastics Championship on Saturday, March 19, 2022 at the Maverik Center in West Valley City. (Spenser Heaps, Deseret News)
Estimated reading time: 5-6 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY – The Red Rocks aren’t done yet.
And with a national championship in the balance, Utah has positioned itself to contend for another title as the Red Rocks qualified for the Final Four of the women’s national championship in gymnastics.
The Red Rocks had a .1375 lead over third-placed Alabama heading into the final rotation of Thursday’s first session meeting at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. But as the Red Rocks showed why they lead the country at the top, Alabama faltered at the vault and Utah secured one of two available spots in the Final Four.
Oklahoma, who entered the first session as the country’s No. 1, had little trouble claiming the other spot to join Utah in Saturday’s final meeting. The Sooners won the meeting with a team total of 198.1125, followed by Utah (197.7125), Minnesota (197.1125) and Alabama (197.1000).
Oklahoma and Utah await the final two opponents of the national championship meeting, which will be decided Thursday night. The four remaining teams battling for a spot at this meetup (4 p.m. MDT, ESPN2) are No. 2 Florida, No. 3 Michigan, No. 7 Auburn, and No. 11 Missouri.
The Red Rocks set the tone early on on the floor and never looked back Thursday afternoon.
Abby Paulson led on the floor, posting a 9.850, and the scores only grew from there, with Grace McCallum (9.9375) and Sydney Soloski (9.9125) leading the team in the first rotation. Soloski didn’t know it at the end of her routine, but as the Red Rocks advance to Saturday’s meeting, she has one last time to lay it all on the floor for the team.
At the end of the first rotation, the Red Rocks had a 49.4750-49.3500 lead over Oklahoma – and everything seemed to be going in Utah’s direction.
That sounded even truer as a sometimes shaky Thursday jump event turned into a strong Thursday. Maile O’Keefe opened the second rotation with a 9.825 and a near stick; and once again the scores kept growing from there. The event was capped off with a meet high of 9.9625 by Jaedyn Rucker in third place.
Rucker, who struggled at the event earlier this year, gave the judges nothing to criticize as she nailed her landing perfectly. She exploded with joy as the realization of the moment hit, and her teammates were there to celebrate the achievement.
Super senior Alexia Burch, who was trailing Rucker, had a stuck landing herself to post a 9.925 and improve the team’s vault score. The Red Rocks finished the tournament with 49.425 points on vault, but Oklahoma rose to the top of the leaderboard after scoring 49.575 points on parallel bars. It was a lead the Sooners never gave up as the team continued to build in the remaining events.
Although all was going well for the Red Rocks until the halfway point in the meeting, adversity struck in the third rotation when the team left several points on the board on beams. British Olympian Amelie Morgan opened the event with a solid 9.875 and a stuck landing, but McCallum (9.725) followed with a low landing that forced her to take a big step to avoid going down.
In fourth and fifth place, Sage Thompson and O’Keefe recorded back-to-back 9.90 points to give the Red Rocks some much-needed points. Both made their landings, including on O’Keefe’s blind double Arabian. Often O’Keefe gets a little too tall and she is forced to take a step to steady herself as soon as she hits the ground. But there were no footsteps Thursday, much to her excitement.
Cristal Isa was looking to finish the event in the anchor position with one of her normally flawless routines, but the elder went a bit sideways on her last pole rotation before her dismount and was forced to jump forward on her landing. Their 9.70 score was dropped, but Utah held out by a slim margin heading into the final rotation of the night.
But if there was one event the Red Rocks wanted to end, it was Beam. Utah has been No. 1 in the event for most of the season, and few in the country can match its lineup. Meanwhile, Alabama needed to finish strong on vault to overtake Utah and earn a place in the Final Four.
Alabama, ranked fifth nationally for vaulting, had a day off and stumbled through the event. Three of the team’s six participating gymnasts recorded scores less than 9.80, including a 9.775 from Kaylee Quinn, a 9.7625 from Jordyn Paradise and a 9.70 from Lilly Hudson to relegate Alabama to last place in the meeting .
The Red Rocks didn’t need to do their best, but they needed to stay upright. Luckily for the team, Morgan started the event with a score of 9.90 and set the tone on landing. Three of the remaining five Utah gymnasts then clocked a 9.9375 to join Lexy Ramler of Minnesota and Luisa Blanco of Alabama for the best result of the night at the event.
Paulson was the first to peak on her return to the Beam team after a back problem kept her out of the first night of Regionals. And then Kara Eaker and O’Keefe finished the meeting with their own score of 9.9375 in back-to-back sticks. O’Keefe had a small balance test in the middle of her routine, but she still managed to keep a high score.
The drama of the meetup wasn’t as dramatic as the regional finals, but the Beam team was no less instrumental in helping the Red Rocks advance to the next phase of the competition.
The national championship meet is Saturday at 11:00 am MDT and will be broadcast on ABC.
team score
#1 Oklahoma
- vault (49.3500)
- Bars (98.9250, 49.5750)
- Bars (148.4375, 49.5125)
- Floor (198.1125, 49.6750)
#4 Utah
- Floor (49.4750)
- Vault (98.9000, 49.4250)
- Bars (148.1125, 49.2125)
- Ray (197.7125, 49.6000)
#8 Minnesota
- Ray (48.9750)
- Floor (98.4750, 49.5000)
- Vault (147.7250, 49.2500)
- Bars (197.1125, 49.3875)
No. 5 Alabama
- Latch (49.2000)
- Bars (98.5250, 49.3250)
- Floor (147.9750, 49.4500)
- vault (197.1000, 49.1250)
Individual Red Rocks results
1st rotation: Floor (49.4750)
- Abby Paulson: 9,850
- Jaylene Gilstrap: 9,825
- Jaedyn Rucker: 9.8875
- Grace McCallum: 9.9375
- Maile O’Keefe: 9.8875
- Sydney Soloski: 9.9125
2nd rotation: Vault (49.4250)
- Maile O’Keefe: 9.8250
- Lucy Stanhope: 9.8500
- Jaedyn Rucker: 9.9625
- Alexia Burch: 9.9250
- Grace McCallum: 9.8625
- Cammy Hall: 9.8000
3. Rotation: Bar (49.2125)
- Amelie Morgan: 9.8750
- Grace McCallum: 9.7250
- Abby Paulson: 9.8125
- Sage Thompson: 9.9000
- Maile O’Keefe: 9.9000
- Crystallize: 9.7000
4. Rotation: Ray (49.6000)
- Amelie Morgan: 9.9000
- Grace McCallum: 9.8875
- Abby Paulson: 9.9375
- Crystal Isa: 9.8750
- Kara Eaker: 9.9375
- Maile O’Keefe: 9.9375
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Josh is an athletic director for KSL.com and a beatwriter for the University of Utah’s track and field—primarily soccer, men’s basketball, and gymnastics. He is also an Associated Press Top 25 voter for college football.