"It's always sweet to win. They're ranked No. 1, we're ranked No. 3, they've had our number for several years now, they're three-time defending champions. How could you not want to win that meet?

"Neither team was at their best, it's the first meet of the season. There were a lot of nerves tonight. But in the final analysis, we won the meet, and that's exciting," Marsden said.

"It feels really good to win a meet" Baskett said. "No one will be upset. We had a lot of mistakes, but it's OK because we can just go up from there and work on it.

"But it's nice to have that win right off the bat. I think the crowd liked it a little bit."

Georgia opened with a 49.325 score on bars to Utah's 49.10 on its first event, vault. After two events, the Gym Dogs were ahead 98.35-98.20.

Marsden was aware of that and made what he called a gut decision to insert freshman Kyndal Robarts into the leadoff spots in the beam and floor lineups. She had scored 9.8 in vault, and Marsden said she has a little more difficulty than the people she replaced, who both had miscues on uneven bars that he said weren't a factor in their being replaced.

Marsden said he thought Robarts' extra difficulty might give Utah a little more oomph as it chased the Gym Dogs. Robarts scored 9.725 on beam and 9.625 on floor, keeping herself inbounds by a toe on her final pass, a 0.1 of a point saved that would come in handy in the end.

Robarts seemed fairly unfazed by suddenly having to lead off two events in her first-ever college meet, starting with the unnerving beam. She said Marsden had told everyone to be ready in case changes had to be made, so she was. "I was glad I could help," she said.

Georgia's Katie Heenan and Kupets tied for the vault title at 9.875s, Kupets beat Baskett 9.95-9.9 for bars, and Postell took both beam and floor with 9.9s, tying Georgia's Courtney McCool on floor.

Georgia is off to Stanford for a meet Sunday, and Utah awaits No. 7 Nebraska in the Huntsman Center next Friday at 7 p.m.

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E-mail: lham@desnews.com