USU gymnastics gets special Valentine, beats SUU
After a brutal stretch of games that opened the season, the Utah State University gymnastics team has been flying, winning three of its past four meets — in which it faced four ranked-teams in five games.
The Aggies took down No. 20 Southern Utah University 196.525-196.450 on Valentine’s Day. The win snapped a five-meet losing streak against SUU (4-5, 2-3) — which dated back to March 24, 2018 — and was the third-highest score in program history.
On Jan. 31, the Aggies lost to the then-No. 23 Thunderbirds in St. George 195.875-195.175. Since then, Utah State (3-6, 2-4) has grabbed two straight against Boise State and SUU, and recorded a 49 or better on each event for the first time this season.
“It was incredibly exciting, but in the same breath, we see them do this every day in practice, so it was just really cool to see them finally settle in and do what we see every day,” said third-year Utah State head coach Amy Smith. “That’s what we’ve been working on, being intentional in practice and having that show up in competition, and they did a phenomenal job of that tonight.”
Freshman Sofi Sullivan was one of two Aggies to post a score in every rotation and finished as the all-around champion with a score of 39.300. Teammate Leighton Varnadore bested her in two rotations — vault and floor — but finished just one-tenth of a point shy of Sullivan at 39.200.
“It was super exciting,” Sullivan said. “I feel like how we’ve been training in the gym really translated to tonight, but we have so much more to show, and that’s really exciting.”
Sullivan tied for first on bars (career-best 9.875) and tied for third on beam (9.850). Utah State junior Autumn DeHarde captured the beam and floor titles with a 9.925 in each event and also placed third in the all-around with a score of 29.650. The lone event title that wasn’t captured by an Aggie was on vault as Southern Utah’s Caitlin Kho and Morgan Alfaro each had a 9.850 to place first.
For her efforts, DeHarde was named the Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference (MRGC) Beam and Floor Specialist of the Week on Monday. It is the third and fourth time this year — and seventh and eighth time in her career — that DeHarde has garnered MRGC weekly honors.
The Aggies moved up to No. 26 (from No. 31) in the rankings over the weekend and will travel to Boise State on Friday to meet the Broncos for the second time this season.
Twitter: @dren_sports