Gymnastics fans across the Beehive State will come together Monday to cheer on their teams as the Best of Utah meet will feature Utah, SUU, BYU and Utah State. Gymnastics is a favorite sport across the state with a rich history of club and collegiate accomplishments. Utah’s Avery Neff (South Jordan) and BYU’s Scarlett Sonnenberg (Springville) showcase some of the recent homegrown talent.
Gymnastics fans across the Beehive State will come together Monday to cheer on their teams as the Best of Utah meet will feature Utah, SUU, BYU and Utah State.
Gymnastics is a favorite sport across the state with a rich history of club and collegiate accomplishments. Utah’s Avery Neff (South Jordan) and BYU’s Scarlett Sonnenberg (Springville) showcase some of the recent homegrown talent.
Neff, now a sophomore, joined Utah last year as the No. 1 recruit in the country, while the freshman Sonnenberg was a five-star rated recruit.
“Utah is a gymnastics state,” said Utah coach Carly Dockendorf. “As a whole, there are a lot of really good club programs. Best of Utah is one of my favorite meets all year.”
The meet will be at the Maverik Center and starts at 7 p.m. The events will be on a podium platform and on the NCAA championship equipment, which was brought in for this quad meet and the Sprouts Collegiate Quad meet Utah competed in Saturday.
Utah
The Red Rocks are coming off one of their most up and down meets in program history Saturday.
They dug an early hole after three beamers fell in their leadoff event but then recorded the highest event score of the competitive Sprouts meet later on vault.
The 49.6 vault total was reminiscent of Utah’s dominant years on the event, and a showing of what the group is capable of collectively.
“Typically, vault isn’t the place where we get it together and can build off of things so that was a really awesome highlight for us,” said Utah senior captain Makenna Smith.
The Red Rocks believe they have the best six gymnasts in every event lineup, but it won’t be surprising to anyone if the order within those lineups changes.
The end goal is to get a solid four-event effort and build from there.
BYU
The Cougars had a great start to their season, outpacing No. 7 Oregon State 195.675-194.525 Friday night.
Bars was the Cougs’ best event with a 49.15, but overall BYU felt it had a strong meet from the get-go.
“From our opening vaulter Daisy Stephenson to go out there and stick a huge Yurchenko full as a lead off, I mean, what a way to start,” said BYU coach Guard Young.
“Bars, they’ve looked this good in training, so what I like is seeing them not changing, just doing what they’ve been doing for me for weeks and months now.”
Depth is a strong point for BYU this season. Notably, Stephenson is back in the lineup after having ACL surgery 13 months ago.
On bars, Young said he warmed up four extra swingers whom he considers as good as the six in the lineup.
Part of the depth includes arguably the best freshman class BYU has had, highlighted by Sonnenberg.
She and Hazel Smith both competed on Friday, with Sonnenberg recording a 9.875 on floor.
Southern Utah
The Flippin’ Birds are also coming off a big opening win, defeating Boise State Friday night 195.675-194.3.
Southern Utah had a number of strong performances, highlighted by Niya Randolph’s 9.9 on bars and 39.4 in the all-around. Mia Hampton recorded a 9.875 on beam, while freshman Berlin Hall had the same score on floor.
SUU is the reigning Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference champion.
Utah State
Best of Utah is the first action of the season for the reigning Mountain West Conference champions. The Aggies were picked to finish second in this year’s conference preseason coaches poll behind Boise State.
Utah State has three first team all-conference gymnasts back this year in Avery Bibbey (bars), Nyla Morabito (vault, floor) and Sydney Jelen (beam).
Friendly reunion
A number of local gymnasts will be featured across the four programs. Several of them formerly trained together during their club careers.
“I just have so many (old) teammates and so it’s so much fun, kind of like a family reunion to see them every Best of Utah,” Neff said.
There are also fun connections with coaching ties, as BYU has brought on Makenna (Merrell) Giles as an assistant coach after the former Red Rock worked as a volunteer coach for the Cougars.
Giles was an All-American at Utah from 2016-2019, while her sister Mickell competed for BYU from 2008-12.
Meet notes
The results of the preseason coaches poll left SUU, BYU and Utah State clustered at No. 29, 30 and 33, respectively. Utah was ranked No. 5 in that poll and moved up to No. 3 in the first poll based on scoring.
BYU and SUU had the same opening meet score of 195.675. This is the seventh Best of Utah meet.
Category: General Sports
