Utes only constant is they have yet to be consistent

The team meeting held by Utah gymnasts on Monday perhaps helped practice early this week.

But the frustrating thing about this team that is 12-3 and ranked sixth and finishes the regular season Friday night at No. 24 BYU (13-7) is that it's kind of normal for the Utes to look good in practice for a day or two.

They just aren't consistent with it, said coach Greg Marsden.

The only constant has been that they have not had a clean meet or clean week of training. Most of the time, they've hit three events and blown either beam or floor, and that is not the way to be on the competitive floor a month from now when they host the 2007 NCAA Championships.

In 11 meets, Utah's had 10 beam routines that scored 9.45 or lower, indicating falls, and nine floor routines of 9.45 or lower, plus a number of .1 out-of-bounds deductions.

"We've lost some confidence because we've consistently struggled in meets," said coach Greg Marsden, whose team was beginning to battle illness again this week as well. Freshman Annie DiLuzio missed Monday's practice, and Tuesday several others were feeling as though they were getting something, Marsden said.

Because training seems distracted more than it should be by outside influences, just day-to-day personal struggles, "It is accurate that there's a lack of consistency in our training. We'll have one good day, and then we'll struggle for two or three and not have our heads here, worrying about a lot of other stuff. When you come in the gym you've got to let all that other stuff go," said Marsden, trying to remedy that this week by demanding routines be hit, especially on floor exercise and on the actual floor and not into soft pits.

"We go into the meet second-guessing ourselves a little bit and hoping rather than knowing that we're going to do what we're capable of."

Such mind-wandering has arisen with other Ute teams, Marsden said, "But in the past somehow we've always been able to pull it together in competition."

MEET RIFF: Team captain Nicolle Ford called Monday's team meeting and brought in Kristen Riffanacht, last year's co-captain with Ford and now an assistant coach, to speak to the Utes. "I know everyone looks up to her," Ford said. "She had a lot of things to say," and the meeting was a positive, reinforcing session.

"We were just trying to regroup as a team," said junior Katie Kivisto.