Utah Utes gymnastics: Red Rocks hope to hand Oregon State first loss

SALT LAKE CITY — The old saying, "something's gotta give," describes Friday's gymnastics meet between No. 7 Utah and No. 9 Oregon State. The Beavers are undefeated on the season, but have never won in Salt Lake City. Utah is at home for a second straight week and looks to defend its home floor and hand the reigning Pac-12 champion its first loss of 2012.

"They are a really tough team," said Utah co-head coach Greg Marsden. "They are very well-coached and typically our meets with them go down to the last event and last performer. I don't expect anything different unless one team struggles this meet."

Utah has spent the week working on small things that have cost it points recently in competition. It's also spent the week dealing with questions regarding judging after Marsden was given a yellow card last week for complaining about low scores, and eventually reprimanded by the league this week.

Marsden admitted there was a misunderstanding of which skill dropped Stephanie McAllister's starting floor value to 9.8 during the Red Rocks' win over Stanford last Friday.

"When we did the inquiry, (in the meet) the way they responded to us, we thought it had to do with what we had approved by Linda Fenton the year before," said Marsden. "It wasn't that aspect of the combination — it was the first skill of the combination. That was the mix-up there."

Marsden said he and fellow co-head coach Megan Marsden were able to find the explanation in the rulebook for what counts as a 180-split. It's in a separate part of the book from what they first reviewed, and therefore this specific skill hadn't been discussed with Fenton. McAllister will now straighten one leg in her routine as the rule states both legs cannot be bent.

Despite the judging issues, Greg Marsden admitted the team needed to focus more on cleaning up its routines.

"We had a fall on beam and our first two people had balance checks, but our last three people were very good," said Marsden about last week. "Again, just have to get more aggressive and cleaner so we don't wind up counting a few lower scores. We weren't doing that earlier in the couple meets where we scored higher."

The coach has also been tinkering with the lineups. Against Stanford he moved Becky Tutka out of the floor leadoff for the first time this year.

"Becky was doing so well on floor I wanted to see what kind of score she would get if we had her later in the lineup," said Greg Marsden. "We also had some experimenting with CoLo (Corrie Lothrop) and Kailah (Delaney) out. Some of the lineup changes were planned and some just happened. We will get it all figured out, and put the routines going to score best in the right order."

Marsden is hoping to have both Delaney and Lothrop back Friday.

"Kailah's not tumbling on floor yet and really not 100 percent, but should be OK to vault," said Marsden. "CoLo strained both arms, but one is worse than the other and behind in healing. We are hoping to have her for at least vault and beam Friday, but it really will be a day of the meet decision."

Top 10 matchup

No. 9 Oregon State (8-0-1) at No. 7 Utah (6-1)

Huntsman Center, 7 p.m.