Denver was selected for the Utah regional competition, which started today, April 2. In a surprising turn of events, the NCAA placed unseeded teams more or less in their nearest geographical regional competition. Denver returns to the site of their season high performance, the Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City. The University of Utah plays host to regional competition where the top two finishers proceed to national semifinals.

The four regional gymnastics competitions are being held at Washington, Alabama, Penn State, and Utah. The top 16 teams in NCAA were seeded into these regionals, and the teams ranked 17 through 36 were placed into regionals based on proximity to host schools. Denver went into the regional selection ranked #18 and predictably ended up at Utah.

Round 1 of the Utah regional was a play-in competition between BYU and Utah State. These two teams entered the competition with the exact same NQS of 196.025 and tied at #32. Advancing from that meet was BYU with a 195.95.

Round 2 takes place on April 3rd, and there will be two sessions this round in the  regional. The first session will be #5 UCLA, #10 Minnesota, #24 Southern Utah, and #30 Boise State. The second session will be #4 Utah, #13 Stanford, #18 Denver, and #32 BYU. The top two from each session advance to the regional final.

Looking at DU’s session, they have to compete at their best to advance. This season, Denver has recorded two losses to Utah  and one loss to Stanford.  Utah is nearly untouchable. They are ranked in the top 6 on every event and #4 overall in the NCAA. They are consistent and solid.

Looking at Denver’s chances of beating Stanford, last season Denver was predicted to advance to national semifinals from the regional finals, but they were upset by Stanford. In their history against Stanford, Denver has 2 wins and 18 losses.

The season stats for the session are as follows:

Last year, Denver was predicted to advance to national semifinals, but faltered in the regional finals. The year prior, they advanced to national semifinals, and caved under pressure to finish last. In 2022, they ended the season at regional competition as well. So in recent history, Denver has failed to advance even when they were ranked high enough to do so. Through the 2025 season, Denver has struggled to find consistency and hit their potential in scoring.

This competition is going to be tough, and recent history isn’t reassuring.

Of course anything can happen, and that’s why we love sports. I love Denver gymnastics and hope they advance. I’m gonna watch and I’m gonna cheer “Let’s Go DU!” But I’m not gonna put any money on Denver advancing to the regional final on Saturday. Luckily for the Pioneer fanbase, we’ll still have hockey!

Photo courtesy NCAA.com