Red Rocks raised bar

Utah’s gymnastics team will honor its culture-changing seniors on Friday night at the Huntsman Center.

Friday is Senior Night for Utah’s gymnastics team, but outside the usual fanfare that goes with such an occasion, Utah coach Tom Farden doesn’t have anything special planned.

“This group brings their own fireworks to the meets,” he said.

Indeed they do.

Utah’s senior class, which began its career in 2019, the same year Farden took over as head coach when Megan Marsden retired, arguably has made one of the biggest impacts on the program.

The Utes have done everything short of winning a national title, as the Utes won the Pac-12 championship meet in 2021 and 2022, tied for the regular season title in 2022 and won it in 2021 and 2020 and finished third at the 2021 and 2022 NCAA Championships.

Individually, Maile O’Keefe is the school record holder with seven 10.0s on the balance beam and has two national titles (uneven bars, floor in 2021), Jaedyn Rucker won the national vault title last year, Cristal Isa is a two-time Pac12 champion (bars and beam in 2021) and Abby Paulson is a two-time Pac-12 balance beam champion (2021 and 2022). Finally, Jillian Hoffman overcame injuries to become a vital member of the vault lineup and fifth-year transfer Abby Brenner has been outstanding in the vault, bars and floor lineups.

There is a lot of success in that group, so much so that Farden believes it will have a place in Utah gymnastics history for more than just the tangible achievements. After the Utes placed a disappointing seventh at the 2019 NCAA Championships, Farden believes this group changed the culture of Utah’s gymnastics team.

“I watched them grow and work together as a team to achieve common goals,” he said. “They all came in so accomplished but they came here to help Utah.”

Having Isa and Brenner on board for their fifth years, thanks to the extra year offered due to the 2020 COVID-shortened season, has certainly helped Utah’s depth. But what is remarkable about this class is the way it has continued to improve.

Rucker is having her best year after she

has steadily improved from the knee injury that forced her to miss her freshman year.

Rucker, who aspires to be a coach one day, said her experience at Utah will help her be a better coach herself.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is how to work with others and connect with people on different levels,” she said.

Paulson is consistently turning out big scores more than she did in the past and O’Keefe has found yet another level in her incredible gymnastics.

O’Keefe isn’t in the floor lineup every meet as the Utes limit her reps to make it easier on her body, which makes her presence almost more impactful such as nights like last week when she scored a 9.95 en route to a career-high 39.75 in the allaround.

“She has continued to get better and better,” Farden said. “She has gotten better at staying patient and with her skills. It’s a cool process that as a coach you hope to see.”

The fact that she has continued to improve has kept training interesting for O’Keefe.

“I love training and competing,” she said. “My body is holding up well. I’m only 21 years old so I am not that old, but Tom has done a great job of managing our numbers in the gym.”

That they are continuing to improve makes it enticing for Rucker and O’Keefe to consider returning for a fifth year, although both indicated they are looking to their future, too, with Rucker wanting to coach and O’Keefe ready to graduate with a degree in kinesiology.

“The advantage to coming back would be to make up for missing the postseason my freshman year,” she said of the COVID-shortened 2020 season. “So it’s still something to think about.”

With all their accomplishments, the only thing left for this group would be to win a national title. The challenge of doing so is harder with Olympian Grace McCallum sidelined with a knee injury, but O’Keefe said the team is up for the task.

“When the postseason comes and we are nervous and timid at nationals, I hope we will be more than willing to stand tall and trust ourselves,” she said. “This year when we have done that we have shown we can hang with anybody we want to.”

This group just might have a few more fireworks left*