Utah Utes gymnastics: Bars team builds confidence before postseason

SALT LAKE CITY — A new resolve from Kyndal Robarts and a completely new routine from Jamie Deetscreek, as well as four stuck landings, helped the University of Utah's uneven bars team break out its best score of the season in the regular-season finale last Friday.

The Utes put together a bars score of 49.425 — .175 better than the bars team had scored all season and tying what was the Utes' best score in any event in 2010 until the floor team completed the regular season with 49.55 later that night — to go into the postseason with some real confidence.

Robarts, a junior who had the best night of her career on three events and in the all-around (39.60), tied her career best on bars, and that may have been the most satisfying part of her night. Bars has always been a bit of a struggle for her, especially the handstands. It has sometimes kept her out of the all-around lineup.

But she decided to be aggressive throughout the whole routine, especially on the handstands.

"Before I went up there, I thought to be aggressive, and that really clicked with me," she said in practice this week. "This is the best one so far with my handstands."

Hitting straight-up handstands is imperative for scoring well, and while it doesn't look that difficult to the audience, Robarts disagrees.

"Well, it kind of is because (if) you go over, there's not much you can do about it, so I think you worry about hitting it right on because you don't want to go over."

On Friday night, she went right at her handstands and was rewarded for that.

Robarts' night also included a 9.925 vault, the only event in which she didn't set or tie a career high, a career-best 9.925 beam and career-tying 9.90 on floor.

"I was nervous, but I was confident in what I was doing. I knew I was going to hit before I went out there, and that made me do a little better," Robarts said.

Deetscreek, a senior, debuted a new bars routine last Friday and received 9.90 to tie her season high, .25 off her career high.

"It was a new bar routine for me, so I was pretty excited to do that," she said, noting that bars coach Jeff Graba and head coach Greg Marsden "kind of talked about (making the change). It's a short routine and takes out a few skills, and a few handstands that I haven't been hitting," Deetscreek said. "And it's also more value than my other routine, even though it's shorter. It was kind of like a last-minute decision, but it worked out well, so I'm happy with it."