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Show 6 Tuesday January 21,2014 SPORTS UPCOMING SPORTS EVENTS THURSDAY: Men's Basketball Utah @ Arizona St. www.dailyutahchronicle.corn MEN'S BASKETBALL Utah defeats No. 25 UCLA Ryan Miller 7 p.m. Tempe, Ariz. STAFF WRITER FRIDAY: Women's Basketball Utah vs. Arizona St. 7 p.m. Huntsman Center Swimming & Diving Utah @ BYU 7 p.m. Provo, Utah Track Utah @ Cherry and Silver Invitational All Day Albuquerque, N.M. NCAA TOP 25 GYMNASTICS RANK TEAM 1 Oklahoma 2 LSU 3 Florida 4 Utah 5 Michigan 6 Georgia 7 Alabama 8 UCLA 9 Nebraska 10 Arkansas 11 Illinois-Champaign 12 Stanford 13 Minnesota 14 Auburn 15 Boise St. 16 Oregon St. 17 Arizona 18 Denver 19 Rutgers 20 Kentucky 21 Washington 22 Kent St. 23 Ohio St. 24 Arizona St. 25 California CHRIS AYERS/The Daily Utah Chronicle Delon Wright goes in for a layup against UCLA on Saturday at the Huntsman Center. GYMNASTICS On an afternoon when Ute fans packed the Huntsman Center to celebrate the past, the current team gave them a big reason to cheer. Utah survived a furious UCLA rally to upset the No. 25 Bruins 74-69 Saturday. The Utes improved to 14-4 on the season and 3-3 in Pac-12 play. Up 17 with 12:47 remaining, Utah had to sweat out the final moments of the game as UCLA sophomore Kyle Anderson led a massive comeback. It wasn't until Los Angeles native Brandon Taylor buried two free throws with 22 seconds remaining that the Utes could breathe easy. "A lot of it feels really rewarding," said Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak. "It was spooky how it got down to the end of the game, but we had a lot of unforced errors and they came at us with length. That produced a problem. It was not a pretty ending, but it's a W. One over a top 25 team. I'd say it's been a pretty good week." Down 18-15 with ii:o8 left in the first half, the Utes started to push the ball. Transition basket after transition basket became a 15-o Utah run, and suddenly Krystkowiak's club seized all momentum. The transition chances came via suffocating defense as the Utes held UCLA's leading scorer Jordan Adams to no points in the first stanza. Playing with the lead and with the crowd already buzzing about the halftime celebration of 199os WAC championship teams, the Utes came out swinging in the second frame. Utah used an up tempo attack to extend its lead to 17, 53-36, as everyone from sophomore Jordan Loveridge to freshman Kenneth Ogbe contributed in building the lead. The Utes' offense was firing on all cylinders, and it looked as if they were going to run UCLA right back to Los Angeles. Be it from the altitude or Utah's attack, the Bruins were visibly tired, so they slowed the game down using a half-court offense. This took the Utes out of rhythm, and suddenly they began relying on jump shots to keep their lead. At first that worked for the Bruins, as a quick 4-o UCLA run cut the Utah lead to 13 with 11:47 remaining, but Ogbe responded. The newcomer hit a long two and then a three to keep the Bruins at bay for a time. Ogbe finished the day with 12 points on a perfect 4-for-4 form the field. "The young man reminds me of Dakarai [Tucker] and Brandon from last year," Krystkowiak said. "It's hard to put freshmen in a situation like this. He's improved See RUNNIN' UTES page 8 COLUMN Despite falls, Red Rocks get the win Gymnastics Griffin Adams ASST. SPORTS EDITOR In their first road meet of the season, the No. 4 Red Rocks took down the Cal Golden Bears on Friday night in Berkeley. After three tremendous rotations, Utah was in control and on pace to break into 197 territory, but two falls on beam in the final event prevented that, and the Red Rocks finished with a mark of 196.875. Cal finished with a score of 196.275. "[The meet] was good," said Utah co-head coach Greg Marsden. "It was a step forward from last week. I saw some real positive things, things that we did a much better job with than last week. It was a great night, especially on the road." Tory Wilson, the only Utah gymnast to compete in all four events, won the all-around for the second week in a row, while Georgia Dabritz kept up her hot start to the season with wins on bars (9.900) and floor (9.950). "For me, I had a lot more confidence than in previous years," Dabritz said. "Overall, we did a really good job. For us to go out there and perform in our first road meet of the season like we did, it was a great improvement from last year." The Red Rocks led from the start after finishing the first event with 49.325 on bars, an apparatus they struggled with last week. Using the momentum gained from that event, Utah kept moving forward in spectacular fashion, finishing vault with a 49.500 and floor with a 49.475. Going into the final rotation, the Red Rocks had a great opportunity to finish the evening with one of the highest scores in the nation to date. Unfortunately for Utah, that last event was beam, the apparatus the team has notoriously struggled with. With the pressure on, Corrie Lothrop started things off with a solid 9.800. That's when things went south. Freshman Baely Rowe fell and received a 9.200, which added more pressure to the rest of the lineup. On the last routine of the meet for the Red Rocks, Mary Beth Lofgren also fell, which resulted in a 9.300 score. Utah finished with its worst event score of the night, 48.575, bringing its meet total to a stillimpressive 196.875. "We need to work on our approach to the beam," Marsden said. "Just like last week, though, we had two falls in this event, and they were uncharacteristic. The two [gymnasts] that fell are arguably our two best beam workers, and unless this becomes a week-in, week-out thing, I have to attribute this to early-season nerves." Dabritz was in the beam lineup a season ago and struggled but is open to getting a shot at redemption if coaches make changes. "I would hope that at some point in the season I will get the chance," she said. "But if not, that's OK. I just want to do what is best for the team." After two meets in which they didn't face overly stiff competition, the Red Rocks will welcome No. 8 UCLA to the Huntsman Center this weekend. "We took a step forward, and that's what it's about, consistently improving and bringing your best when it comes regional and NCAA Championship time," Marsden said. "We improved, but we need to be better next BRENT UBERTY/The Daily Utah Chronicle week against UCLA. That's going to be a big one." Tori Wilson performs on beam at the Huntsman Center on g.adams@chronicle.utah.edu Jan. 11. needs to get its balance RYAN McDo NALD Sports Editor T here's a fine line between having valid excuses for poor performance and just not being very good. For more than a year now, the Red Rocks have been suspect on balance beam. Each time a less-than-stellar routine is turned in, coaches and gymnasts alike offer reasons for the mistakes. Most often, they point to the idea that whatever bad thing happened to cause a bad score (read: a fall) was a fluke and won't happen again. Such reasoning helps maintain hope, and it gets the beam team off the hook until the next mistake is made. Flukes are rare occurrences, so these once-in-a-season problems won't happen again, right? After season-long struggles a year ago, coaches and gymnasts said extra attention was given during the offseason to improving the beam performance, but so far not a whole lot has changed. Utah posted a 49.075 in its season opener on Jan. II and then just a 48.575 last Friday at Cal. No falls occurred io days ago, but multiple balance checks did. Against the Golden Bears, two Red Rocks fell, preventing the team from breaking the See MCDONALD page 8 |