The ups and downs continue for Denver gymnastics. The team ended their regular season with a new low score for a road loss against Oregon State, then took second in the Big 12 Championships behind Utah. Being ranked 23rd nationally, they will advance to Regional competition unseeded, meaning they were placed in the Corvallis, OR competition based on geographic location.
March 14
In their first visit to Corvallis, #23 Denver was supposed to beat #25 Oregon State. But the meet was closer than expected through three rotations, as the judges were seemingly biased towards OSU. Many form breaks for OSU didn’t seem to matter to the judges, but Denver was deducted for similar errors. But then none of that bias mattered when it came to the fourth rotation. In a catastrophic beam rotation where three athletes fell, Denver had to count two falls for a full point deduction. The Pioneers lost 195.175 to OSU’s 196.925.
March 21
A week later, Denver was back to their season average for a second place finish in the Big 12 conference. Similar to the rest of the season, the team wasn’t error free, but avoided counting any misses. The meet wasn’t even close as Utah won by over a point, and Denver bean third place BYU by four tenths. Denver’s score of 196.575 wasn’t enough to move them up from 23rd rank, cementing their unseeded position heading into regional competition.
Big 12 Conference results:
- Utah 197.675
- Denver 196.575
- BYU 196.175
- Arizona State 195.225
- Arizona 194.725
- West Virginia 194.250
Looking forward to Regionals, Denver gets a bye in the first round of competition and will have their next next outing on April 3rd. College Gym News (Data Deep Dive) has run data simulations based on every team’s athletes’ scores and number of lineup appearances and has determined that Denver has only a 10% chance of making it to the third round, which would be the Sweet 16 of gymnastics. On April 3, Denver will face #5 Alabama, #12 Utah, and home team Oregon State The top two finishers in this session advance to round 3. The last time Denver finished outside the top 16 was way back in 2014. Perhaps they can pull off new highs and leave the lows behind.
Photo Courtesy Denver Pioneers
The beam seems to be the biggest problem this season and they are young. Overall, Melissa has squeezed a lot out of this team. They have had some moments but not enough to be elite.