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Utah's Avery Neff competes on the floor exercise during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
FORT WORTH — Utah gymnastics didn’t just survive and advance Thursday night in the national semifinals of the NCAA women’s gymnastics championships.
The Red Rocks didn’t just rally from last place to win their semifinal meet. And they didn’t just defeat rival UCLA for the third time this season and upset No. 1 LSU, the reigning national champion.
They, in fact, did all of those things.
Led by senior Grace McCallum, who had arguably the most impactful meet of her collegiate career, Utah was the best team in Thursday’s national semifinals at Dickies Arena. Eight teams competed and not a single one was better than Utah.
The Red Rocks scored a 197.7625 to win the evening semifinal, edging out the rival Bruins (197.7375) in the process. LSU finished third in the meet with a 197.5250, its season now over, while Michigan State finished fourth with a 197.3625.
Oklahoma won the afternoon session with a 197.5500, while Missouri upset Florida with a 197.3000 (the Gators were eliminated with a 197.2000) to earn a berth in national championship meet.
Utah, Oklahoma, UCLA and Missouri will compete for the national title Saturday. The 2025 national champion is destined to be either the Sooners, Bruins, Tigers or Red Rocks.
The Red Rocks seemed anything but destined to advance for much of Thursday night’s competition. Yet for the fifth consecutive season Utah has advanced to the national championship competition — the Four on the Floor.
“What an honor to be here. It just takes so much to even get to national championships,” Utah head coach Carly Dockendorf said. “We definitely don’t take it for granted. And, you know, I am just so proud of this team tonight.”
She had every reason to be.
Utah was the best team among the eight semifinalists on multiple events — floor exercise and uneven bars — but at the start of the evening semifinal there was every reason to count the Red Rocks out.
Utah struggled mightily on beam in the first rotation, with stalwarts like McCallum and fellow Olympian Amelie Morgan competing well below their norm. Add in a fall by All-American Camie Winger and Utah had by far the worst rotation of any team to start the competition. UCLA meanwhile had a standout floor rotation, while Michigan State and LSU did well enough on vault and bars for things to appear pretty dire for Utah. The Red Rocks never doubted they’d overcome, though.
“We have really kind of emphasized having no doubt (this season),” Morgan said. “And I know for me and pretty much all of our team, there was no doubt in our minds that we weren’t going to make it (to the national championship meet). And even though it was that close, I think we knew we could do it. We knew we are that good and I think that’s what carried us through.”
Belief, talent, a combination — whatever it was Utah did pull it out in the end, though not without considerable intrigue. After the second rotation (on floor), the Red Rocks had taken the lead, jumping from fourth place to first. After the third rotation (on vault) Utah fell into third place, below the needed cut-off line of top two to advance. But at the end of the final rotation (on bars) there was no question, Utah was through and would compete another day this season.
Much of that was due to McCallum. The senior delivered again and again for Utah (after her slow start on beam) and finished as the national runner-up in the all-around competition and on bars, floor and vault.
McCallum was as close to her best — when Utah needed her the most — again and again.
“I just knew I needed to go out there and deliver and do what I do in the gym every day, because that was more than enough,” she said. “And so that’s what we (Utah) did. We kept the energy up and we kept the hype.”
And now the much hoped for a 10th NCAA national title, 11th all-time, remains a possibility for Utah.
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Utah's Jaylene Gilstrap celebrates after competing on the floor exercise during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
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Utah's Ashley Glynn competes on the floor exercise during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
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Utah's Grace McCallum celebrates the team after competing on the uneven bars during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
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Utah's Avery Neff celebrates after competing on the uneven bars during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
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Utah's Ella Zirbes celebrates after competing on the uneven bars during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
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Utah's Amelie Morgan competes on the balance beam during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
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Utah's Grace McCallum celebrates after competing on the floor excercise during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
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Utah's Ella Zirbes competes on the floor exercise during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
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Utah's Makenna Smith competes on the balance beam during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
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Utah's Ana Padurariu competes on the balance beam during the NCAA women's gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) | Tony Gutierrez
Defining moment
With such a turbulent competition — there were four lead changes at the end of rotations, all involving Utah and UCLA — there were plenty of moments that changed the course of things, only to have it altered again.
Every hit routine was essential to Utah advancing. And every mistake in every routine critical and nearly ruinous.
All things considered, though, no routine was more important than Jaylene Gilstrap’s vault.
The fifth-year senior had been a reserve on the event for almost the entire season. Her Yurchenko Full is a solid vault, but with a start value of 9.95 and not 10.0, it simply wasn’t valuable enough to have in the lineup week-to-week.
After sophomore Ella Zirbes struggled mightily during warmups prior to Thursday’s competition — Zirbes fell at the end of her vault multiple times — Utah needed Gilstrap to step into the lineup. It needed a hit vault to start off the vault rotation.
Gilstrap did more than that. She competed arguably the best vault of her Utah career, a tiny hop on the landing the only deduction.
She scored 9.8500 for her effort, which tied for the second-best vault score by a Utah gymnast Thursday. More importantly, she got the Red Rocks started right on an event that had been their Achilles heel in past postseasons. While Utah didn’t thrive on vault the way it could have, the Red Rocks scored high enough on what has been their worst event to keep them in the meet entering the final rotation. In no small part because of Gilstrap.
“Yeah, that was huge,” Dockendorf said. “We had made that decision (to insert Gilstrap into the lineup) after the open warm up today. It just shows the depth that we have on this team. We’ve talked about it, you never know when your name is going to be called, but you better be ready. And she was. She’s been training beautiful vaults so we knew that she could go and do a really clean landing. And that’s what was going to be important, was that landing today.”
Needs work
Before Thursday’s meet, Utah tweaked its beam lineup in an effort to return to form on the event. For most of the regular season, the Red Rocks’ strength was beam. At the end of the regular season, Utah ranked No. 3 in the country on beam.
Between McCallum, Morgan, Winger, Avery Neff, Ana Padurariu and Makenna Smith, Utah had a great beam lineup. Until suddenly it didn’t.
Struggles by Winger have been the most obvious, but across the lineup gymnasts have struggled with confidence and have competed well below their capabilities. Even McCallum has lost confidence on the event, going from five iconic wolf turns on beam to just two (the required amount needed to get bonus points for the skill).
The change in lineup order was supposed to fix that (Winger shifted from the second spot to the fourth spot).
It didn’t, though.
Utah struggled mightily on beam, be it balance checks by McCallum and Morgan, or a fall by Winger. And even when the Red Rocks did well, they surrenders much-needed tenths of a point with mistakes. A hop on Padurariu’s dismount one of the more notable ones.
The Red Rocks were praised by many after the meet for competing a complete meet. And when compared to what the other seven teams did Thursday Utah did compete the most complete meet.
But the Red Rocks are much more capable on beam than they demonstrated and will need to be better if they are going to end the 30-year national title drought.
It wasn’t just beam, though.
While improved, maybe even the best rotation yet this season given the stakes, Utah’s vault rotation could have been better.
Neff did not compete her best vault. Smith, Ashley Glynn and Zoe Johnson all failed to stick their vaults. Utah had the legitimate potential to score a 49.5 or better on vault, but small hops cost the Red Rocks dearly.
That’s encouraging
There was plenty of reason for optimism after the competition too, though.
For only the second time this season, Utah competed to its real potential on bars and that lineup propelled Utah to victory.
Led by McCallum, who scored a 9.9625, five Red Rocks earned scores of 9.9125 or better. Which meant Utah only counted scores of 9.9125 in better. It was a championship-quality bars rotation.
“These women have worked so hard on bars this year, and they’ve been so consistent over there,” Dockendorf said. “I didn’t have any doubt that they were just going to go do what they’ve been practicing, because they’ve been putting in the work every single day.”
Utah also impressed on floor, besting even the rival Bruins (the top ranked floor team in the country).
It was again across the rotation. The Red Rocks counted one score below a 9.90, a 9.8750 from Neff. McCallum, Smith, Gilstrap and Zirbes all competed at or near their best and they did so immediately following the team’s struggles on beam.
Notably, for Zirbes to do as well as she did, on both bars and floor, after being removed from the vault lineup, speaks to her quality as a gymnast.
Most encouraging of all, though, was Utah’s indefatigable nature put on display again.
The Red Rocks have struggled many times this season, in the postseason especially, to compete at their best across all four events. Utah has also been in danger of being eliminated twice now, first in the Salt Lake City NCAA regional final and now in the national semifinals in Fort Worth.
But each time, Utah has found a way to not only survive and advance, but win competitions where that didn’t seem possible. Multiple blue bloods toppled Thursday, but the one that has been around the longest — Utah — remained standing.
Dockendorf credited that to the entirety of Utah gymnastics. Gymnasts and coaches, yes, but also support staff, the University of Utah and Utah fans themselves.
“I think one thing we would all agree on is that it’s not just a handful of people that make it possible,” she said. “It’s our community of fans and donors and alumni and administration. Our community of support is so massive, and it has been for now 50 years and I just think that every woman that comes on this team, they understand the expectation of this program. Every staff member that’s a part of this team understands what the expectation is. And we love it. We take great pride in that we get to be a part of a program that is expected to be here every single year ... year after year.”
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