Then, many of the gymnasts entered the season out of shape, behind schedule and seemingly clueless of the commitment it takes to be one of the nation's best teams.

Luckily for them, the Utes overcame their underachieving start to finish second at the NCAA Championships. This year, the Utes are determined to have another strong finish but not the bad beginning.

"We all came in with better attitudes and in better shape because we didn't want to go through what we went through last year again, not at all," junior Kristina Baskett said. "The really good thing is we ended strong. How we ended gave us the strength to want to come back with even better attitudes and work harder this year so we could feed off that ending."

Hampering Utah's 2007 start was the influx of six freshmen into the lineups. The addition of such a big class to a team that wasn't in good physical shape only added to the problems on the competition floor and off it.

"We weren't a team last year," Marsden said. "Only in the postseason did we really come together and it was amazing how dramatically it changed."

All the issues overwhelmed senior captain Nicolle Ford at times, so this year the team elected to go without a captain.

"The concept is we have 13 captains," Marsden said. "You have to have everybody share the responsibility of being on a team."

The good news for the Utes is they return much of the talent that helped the Utes to their strong finish. The Utes lost Ford to graduation and Sarah Shire transferred, but they return proven winners such as Baskett and Postell. Others including Nina Kim, Daria Bijak and Katie Kivisto are either in better shape or over injuries that slowed them last year.

Utah has three freshmen, a class that got a boost with the early addition of Canadian Gael Mackie, who was going to delay her entry into college a year to train for the 2008 Olympics but recently joined the team because Canada failed to qualify for the Olympics.

All the positives have the third-ranked Utes believing they can once again contend for the national title. They'll find out how they rate Friday, when they open the season against top-ranked Georgia.

lwodraska@sltrib.com

Kristina Baskett 5-1 Jr.

Daria Bijak 5-2 So.

Jamie Deetscreek 5-3 So.

Annie DiLuzio 5-3 So.

Jessica Duke 5-4 Sr.

Jacquelyn Johnson 5-3 Fr.

Nina Kim 5-3 Jr.

Katie Kivisto 5-0 Sr.

Gael Mackie 5-2 Fr.

Stephanie Neff 5-0 So.

Ashley Postell 5-2 Sr.

Beth Rizzo 5-0 So.

Kyndal Robarts 5-4 Fr.