Utah Ute gymnasts set attendance record

SALT LAKE CITY — Junior Kyndal Robarts kind of upstaged her senior teammates with a career-high 39.60 all-around on Senior Night at the Huntsman Center, but everyone on the University of Utah team had a hand in building the season's best score on Friday night.

And they all could bask in the red glow of a monumental gymnastics attendance record as they gave the crowd a show, a 196.95-195.825 win over BYU. Both scores were season highs.

On a night when there was a laser show and many thousands of red-flashing sunglasses were handed out to help honor Utah's four seniors in their final regular-season home meet in a lights-out, pre-meet ceremony, Utah drew a crowd of 15,030 to help the Utes set an NCAA women's gymnastics single-season attendance record and up Utah's 2010 season average to 14,213.

That made Utah the 2010 NCAA attendance champion for all women's sports. Alabama women's gymnastics drew an average of 13,786, and Tennessee women's basketball drew 12,393 per game this year.

Utah's 2010 attendance average, however, is not close to the NCAA women's attendance records set by Tennessee, which averaged 16,565 in 1998-99 and has averaged more than 15,000 four other times.

"It was thrilling for me," said Greg Marsden, who has coached the Utes since their very beginning and who has toiled and innovated for these 35 years to put all those fans in the Huntsman Center seats.

"We are the envy of every gymnastics program," said Marsden, adding Alabama and Georgia probably would disagree with him, but the numbers do tell the story. "Our fans are such a part of this tradition."

"I think it's incredible just to be a part of it and be able to experience it," said senior Annie DiLuzio, who closed out her last regular-season meet by tying her career high on floor with 9.975 as the final performer of the night. She also had a 9.925 vault. "Nobody can say that they've experienced what we've experienced here," she added about the crowd record.

"It was exciting," added Robarts. "It was really energetic and upbeat. I could definitely feel it. Me and Daria (senior Bijak) before floor, we were like, 'Whoa,' because the upper bowl was full, too."

Robarts said she wouldn't call her career-high 39.60 an "upstaging" of the seniors, though she edged Bijak (39.525). Senior Jamie Deetscreek scored a 39.025, despite a fall on beam.

"I just felt like I was on a roll tonight. I don't know what it was specifically," said Robarts. "Just everything felt on."