No. 4 Utah Gymnastics Prepping For Big Meet With No. 3 Cal
Feb 29, 2024, 1:25 PM
SALT LAKE CITY –ย After posting their season high last Friday against Stanford, the No. 4 Red Rocks now turn their attention to the No. 3 Cal Golden Bears in what has turned into a huge meet.
Utah has a big task ahead of them being on the road against a team that has been on the rise the past few seasons. Saturday’s meet could ultimately be a small half-preview of what the “Four on the Floor” could look like come April.
Head coach Carly Dockendorf talked about the challenge and excitement of facing what is turning out to be one of the better teams in the country as the regular season begins to wind down.
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Utah Excited For Big Opportunity Against Cal
The Red Rocks really feel like they have been coming into their own the last week or two with everything culminating last Friday into the first 198 score of the year. Dockendorf thinks the timing of this meeting with Cal comes at a good time for her team.
“I think the timing of it is excellent,” Dockendorf said. “We’re just kind of hitting our stride right now. We’ve had a couple of great away meets and obviously a big score on Friday night. This is what we train for is to compete against the best. There is great excitement around competing against the top teams in the country and so we are just really looking forward to that opportunity of competing against Cal.”
The Golden Bears are also coming off a confidence-building performance last week against UCLA where they scored a 198.400 in Pauley Pavilion. Dockendorf recognizes the work Cal gymnastics has put in to be great in 2024 and is looking forward to seizing up with them Saturday afternoon.
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โ Utah Gymnastics (@UtahGymnastics) February 24, 2024
“They’ve been doing exceptional from the beginning all year,” Dockendorf said. “They’ve been super consistent and so it’s great for us to finally be in an arena together and judge us together rather than competing separately and getting scores at different places. We get to go head-to-head and compete for the best team that day.”
Cal isn’t the only team that has been consistent- despite a rough quad-meet to start the 2024 season, the Red Rocks have done a great job steadying the ship and performing at a high level. Dockendorf now wants to see her team clean the small things up to save small deductions as the season begins its transition into postseason.
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“We have been really consistent,” Dockendorf said. “From here, we are really focusing on the .05. Just some small areas we can improve on- we still aren’t consistent on our vault landings. We’re giving up a lot of 10ths. Our vaults are big, but as you can tell, judges are really giving a deduction on landings this year.”
Michelle Bodkin is the Utah Utes Insider for KSLsports.com and host of both the Crimson Corner Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) andย The Saturday Showย (Saturday from 10 a.m.โ12 p.m.) on The KSL Sports Zone. Follow her onย X,ย Instagram, andย Threads: @BodkinKSLsports
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