Denver gymnastics traveled to BYU on Friday for the second away meet in a row, only four days between meets. Senior star Jessica Hutchinson did not compete. Coach Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart said she was letting Jessica rest to provide opportunities for other team members step up in the lineup. There were also a few other starters who did not compete this week in all of their normal events.
DU needed a high away score to increase their NQS score and cement their ranking. Unfortunately, the lineup switches did not allow DU to hit scores that will help their ranking. In fact, now that NQS is being used, DU falls a few spots.
Going into Friday’s competition, Denver was ranked #2 in the nation on bars. At BYU, they recorded their lowest bar score of the season. Unfortunately, the team members who were challenged to step up in the lineup were not able to keep up the sky high scores that Denver has earned recently.
On vault, Denver had only three 10.0 start value vaults (compared to four normally), and didn’t manage to stick any vaults. Two seniors, Rosie Casali and Rylie Mundell, recorded 9.85 for the highest DU scores on this event.
Floor was the highlight of the meet for DU. We saw an increase in performance in alignment with their season averages, even without seniors Rylie Mundell and Jessica Hutchinson. The rising star of the rotation was freshman Maddison Reidenbach, who hit a career high 9.9 on the event. She does a unique first tumbling pass of a half-twisting whip-back to a front one-and-a-half (Rudi), and she nailed it on Friday. So this was a great illustration of the team depth showing how strong this DU team is.
In the last rotation, BYU floor performances were on fire. Meanwhile, Denver was tentative and shaky on the beam. Connections were not good, and balance checks were frequent. To be honest, I think some of the scores were generous. Junior Momoko Iwai was the standout of the meet with her solid 9.95. I’ll say it again: one of these days judges will give her a 10.
The DU hype guys were in attendance with Denver flag in tow, and were showed on the EPSN+ livestream. The DU fans could be heard chanting “Denver” after each routine. This team cheering section travels well and are always mentioned by commentators. However, the BYU student section put Denver’s home meet showing to shame. It was large and the students were fully engaged in the meet. Especially on floor, where every student was on their feet dancing along. Even the cougar mascot was in attendance.
In the end, Denver topped BYU 196.9 to 196.5. This meet was a lot closer than it should have been. But remember, gymnastics scores don’t depend on how good the opponents are. It’s not like basketball where teams can score way more points on a weak opponent than on tough competition. It’s all up to every gymnast to do her job every meet. The team score gets calculated by adding up the top 5 scores for each team on each event. So unfortunately, Denver’s strategy to rest some of their starting lineup hurts their ranking even though they pulled out a win.
At the same time DU competed at BYU, #1 Oklahoma competed at West Virginia. Oklahoma recorded the fourth highest NCAA team score in history with a 198.675. They will head into week 9 with a NQS of 198.27. In contrast, DU has a NQS of 197.27. This is a full point behind Oklahoma. The NQS is what NCAA uses to seed teams for regional competitions, which are what determines who goes to Nationals.
Both California and Florida recorded scores over 198 this week, joining Denver and five others in that 198 club. Remember, a team score of 198 is an average score of 9.9 for every counted routine. The problem for Denver is that they haven’t consistently scored that high. The top five teams right now are all showing better consistency in the high 197 range or above 198.
So although DU decided it was best to shake up the lineup and rest some starting athletes, they fall down to #11 in the NQS ratings because of it. Perhaps coach Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart is playing the long game. She knows her team will rank high enough to qualify for regionals, even if it is a lower seed than her squad deserves. Perhaps she also knows that posturing and sometimes geography have more to do with regional placement than fair evaluation of teams. Perhaps her move was strategic to ensure her team peaks at just the right time to beat higher seeded teams at regionals. We can only wait and see. If coach Kutcher-Rinehart’s history says anything, we can count on her to make smart choices and her team to surprise the regional fields.
There are three more weeks in the regular season for NCAA gymnastics. Denver will host it’s last home meet on March 3, and then finish the regular season with two away meets, at Missouri and Michigan. They will need to score higher than 197.175 at home, and higher than 196.9 at the away meets to increase NQS. They will need to score in the 197.5 range to increase their ranking significantly. For a team who legitimately earned a 198 this year, they should be able to climb back up to #7. So although, DU’s ranking drops ahead of week 9 competition, they have good opportunities to battle back up.
Photo Courtesy University of Denver Athletics