Ute's aggressiveness helps her team qualify

At 25, Utah's Gritt Hofmann may be the oldest NCAA gymnast out there, but even as she nears the end of a long gymnastics career, she learned something about herself on balance beam at the April 18 regional in Michigan.

Already making more of her fifth year of eligibility than most people — including herself — could have imagined, she found an inner aggressiveness on balance beam that she never knew was there.

She scored 9.85 to help the Utes overcome two falls in the first part of their beam set that nearly kept them from qualifying for the NCAA championships at Oregon State on Thursday through Saturday.

Utah has always qualified, but it was a close call this time until strong beam routines from Nina Kim, Hofmann, Nicolle Ford and Ashley Postell, the former world beam champ who saved herself from a fall only through great determination.

"It helped me actually to go out aggressive. Usually I don't go that aggressive," said Hofmann. "Usually it's more I try to stay on rather than really show off and hit everything you can.

"I kind of got mad. It was almost like getting mad — 'No, I don't want to go home. I want to do this.' "

"Gritt was just like, 'This is my last year. I wasn't going to let it end at regionals.' She was like, 'There's no way I was going to go wrong,' " said Ford, who discussed their feelings afterward.

Ford said she was "like sick-to-my-stomach nervous," but that kind of thing often helps her.

Coach Greg Marsden knew about Hofmann's determination.

"(Ford) told me she talked to Gritt, and Gritt said she did not come back for a last year not to make it to nationals," Marsden said. "There was no way she was going to come off that balance beam."

Said Ford: "Usually Gritt's the quiet one, but this is her last year for sure and she knows what she wants and she's on a mission, and she wasn't going to let herself be part of any problems."

That mad mind-set also helps Kim, a freshman. Kim has fallen just once on beam this season and has scored as well as 9.90.

Ford, a junior, always gives Kim a pep talk before beam. "And it's usually not really a nice pep talk where I'd say, 'You can do this.' It's more I get in Nina's face and get her mad, just to know she doesn't want anything bad to happen either, and, 'We're not going to let them move past us.'

"I've learned that works with Nina."