Record Breakers, part 2: USU gymnastics season recap

The warmup prior to Utah State gymnastics’ meet against Air Force didn’t fill head coach Amy Smith or her staff with confidence that the team would go out and perform up to the level she knew they could. According to her, it was bad.

“I mean, Amanda, Eric and I were looking at each other going, ‘Oh my gosh, what are we going to get today’,” said Smith. “I just stopped them after warmups and was like guys like, ‘what are we doing? Like, you’ve got two choices: we can continue down this path, or you can go put your leotards on and come out and let’s handle some business.’”

The team took the latter path.

Utah State dominated the Air Force Falcons, posting a 195.550-192.375 win on the road that would set the tempo for weeks to come. Prior to that, the opening two weeks for the Aggies were not necessarily pleasant. The team battled two top-five schools — Utah and UCLA — and four top-25 programs across two meets, winning none of them. However, a shift in focus got the group on the right track, and the Aggies went on a nine-game tear in which they lost just once. 

That shift — according to multiple players and Smith — might have resonated as they were taking the floor against Air Force, but was really formed before the season started. Utah State’s program had been moderately successful for the past 10-20 years, though it never reached the heights that it could have. But 2020 was the first winning season in 21 years for Utah State gymnastics — a culmination of three years of work by Smith and her staff that included convincing the players just how good they could be.

“It was a big culture shift this year,” Smith said. “It takes everybody collectively getting on board and believing in the process and all of that, and they really did.”

It’s one thing just to think that the team’s good, but it’s a completely different and more challenging task to prove that it is. Although USU was headed on the right track, its belief in how high the ceiling could be was still a slow build. As Smith put it, “They got a little taste of that at Air Force,” but there was still a lot of work to be done.

The following week after beating Air Force, the team dropped its last meet of the season — a loss by less than a point against No. 23 Southern Utah. From then on, the Aggies racked up three wins against ranked opponents and a win against every member of the Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference. 

Sophomore Grace Rojas celebrates her performance on the bars for the second rotation scoring a 9.825 for the Utah State team during their gymnastics match against Boise State at the Dee Glen Spectrum in Logan, UT on Feb. 7, 2020 (Amber French/USUSM).

It’s cliche to say things like ‘competition is the greatest motivator.’ But often, the sentiment ends up manifesting itself into reality. 

Senior Brittany Jeppesen noticed that the coaches made an effort to shake up the lineups before every match early in the season, which ended up being one of the tools the team used to push past its previous plateaus.

“Every single day, the girls were in there working their butts off, like it was basically a competition in the gym almost every day because we never knew who was going to be put up in lineups,” Jeppesen said. “I think that made the biggest difference just this season, and I also feel like the whole attitude shift and the leadership I feel I like has been better this year.”

At Boise State, the group put up a score of 196.800 — the second-highest in program history. On the same night, they also set the school record on the beam with a score of 49.575. Two weeks later, Utah State hosted No. 17 BYU on senior night and put up another incredible performance. Jeppesen earned a share of the title on bars and set a career-high 9.900, a score she had been looking for her whole career. Junior Autumn DeHarde picked up a pair of titles on beam and floor, and Utah State completed a perfect home season for the first time in 41 years.

After the win against BYU — what ended up being the last meet of the season — the belief really started to take hold in the players.

“You could just see in our team meeting that we had. After that meet, talking about going into Utah and talking about going into the conference championship,” Smith said, “you could see the belief in their eyes, and the confidence in their eyes that it finally just really, really clicked and like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re really good.’”

The trip to meet the Falcons also kicked off the team’s reign as the best beam unit in the MRGC. Freshman Sofi Sullivan set the school record on beam with a score of 9.975 against Air Force in the third meet of her college career. She and DeHarde were integral to the Aggies getting to as high as No. 19 in the nation in that discipline. By season’s end, DeHarde set the school record with 12 career beam titles as well as earning MRGC Gymnast of the Year and Sullivan picked up the conference’s Freshman of the Year honor.

.@sofiasullivan45 set a school record on beam of a 9.975 on her way to being named Co-Beam Specialist of the Year.

*she is only a freshman*#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/WZCqfdc59D

— USU Gymnastics (@USUGymnastics) March 25, 2020

“I think our mindsets are just different this year. I think we really wanted it,” DeHarde said. “Unfortunately, our season had to be cut short, but we really wanted to make regionals this year. And that was our goal, and we were set to do that.”

The way the season ended was no doubt challenging for everyone involved. However, 2020 was a positive step forward for the program. And while the team will lose two of its best athletes and leaders in Jeppesen and Elle Golison, Smith is focused on improving an already great group of women that come back for 2021.

“Looking ahead I do get very excited,” she said. “I believe we’re losing those three routines and I think we’re gaining 12 or 13 routines — not athletes — within five athletes. So looking at the numbers, I’m not a numbers person, but we should be incredibly stronger than what we were this year across the board.”

Featured image courtesy of Wade Denniston/USU Athletics

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— sports@usustatesman.com