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Minutes before their home opener on Friday, Utah's gymnastics team will hold a celebration to recognize their 2014 Pac-12 title, the first Pac-12 team championship won by the athletic program.
Expect the ceremony to be a short one. The last thing this team is interested in doing is riding on the success of that historic win.
The Utes, who have captured nine conference titles combined as a member of the High Country Athletic Conference, the WAC and Pac-12, look at their win last year as something special, but by no means are the Utes are in danger of letting that affect their future goals.
"It's a new year," senior Georgia Dabritz said. "It had some great memories, but we had that bitter ending, too. We want to do even better this year."
The ending Dabritz speaks of was the Utes' failure to reach the Super Six after winning the Pac-12 and region titles. That swing of results taught the Utes to not take anything for granted.
"It was great to win the Pac-12, but honestly it was a bigger goal to be a top-three team again," Utah coach Greg Marsden said. "We thought we had a legitimate chance to win the championship, and that is what we were pushing for."
The good news is the Utes don't have to sit back and think "what if," because they are convinced they could be better this year than last, thanks to the return of Cassandra Lopez from injury, plus some talented newcomers.
"We're excited to show we're still at the top of the Pac-12," Lopez said. "People know we won it last year, and it's still a long ways away, but we're getting ready for it."
This time, finishing short of another league title might be a disappointment, although Marsden cautioned that the rest of the conference, like the Utes, has gotten better.
"It's going to be a dogfight," he said. "We know UCLA and Stanford are going to be good, and Oregon State is always in the mix, so it's going to be hard to repeat."
Boise State, SUU and UC Davis at Utah
P At the Huntsman Center
Start • 7 p.m. MT
Internet • http://www.utahutes.com
Records • Utah 1-0; SUU 0-1; UC Davis 4-1; Boise St. 0-0
Series history • Utah is 20-0 against SUU, 13-0 against Boise State and 1-0 vs. UC Davis
About the Utes • As part of their celebration for the 2014 Pac-12 championship, the first 1,000 fans will receive replicas of the trophy. … Freshman Tiffani Davis is scheduled to lead off the Utes on floor after scoring a 9.85 in exhibition last week against BYU. … Freshman Samantha Partyka will make her debut in the vault lineup. … The Utes opened with a 196.9-193.35 win over BYU.
About the opponents • SUU opened the season with a 194.2-193.925 loss against Arizona State last week. … Allie Salas is SUU's top all-around performer from a week ago with a score of 38.75. … UC Davis is led by Dani Judal, who has a high of 38.925 in the all-around. … Boise State was picked to win the Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference.