facebook-pixel

Utah’s gymnastics team is adept on vault, but has had issues. Sticking the landing is everything.

The event seems straightforward, but mid-course corrections are hard. It also can be a harbinger of what’s to come on other events, for good or ill.

(Isaac Hale | Special to The Tribune) Utah’s Lucy Stanhope competes on the vault during a gymnastics meet between the University of Utah and the University of California, Berkeley, held at the Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021.

Of all the events in women’s collegiate gymnastics, the vault seems the most straightforward. A gymnast takes off down the runway, launches off the table, makes a move or two in the air then sticks the landing.

In mere seconds the event is over. Simple, right?

Not exactly, particularly that dang landing.

In all events the landing is the lasting impression on judges, but it seems to be more important on the vault whether or not an athlete sticks because the routine as a whole is so short. Sticking that landing, though, is one of the trickiest things in gymnastics.

The whole idea of vault is to get enough momentum to perform a trick but have enough amplitude to drop straight down for the landing. But gymnasts can’t always pull off that kind of vault and adjustments are hard because the landings are blind.

Suddenly the shortest event seems one of the most complicated. No wonder then teams are working like mad in practice this week to stick their vault landings in preparation for the NCAA Regionals at the Maverik Center. But fans can still expect to see their share of steps, stumbles and perhaps sit-downs.

“It’s incredibly challenging to stick the vault,” Utah coach Tom Farden said. “With the blind landings, everything has to be just right.”

Farden knows this to be true from experience.

NCAA REGIONALS

Salt Lake City Bracket

At the Maverik Center

Thursday

Play-in • Temple vs. Arizona, 3 p.m.

Friday

(Teams’ starting events in parenthesis)

Session 1 • Utah (beam), Arizona State (bars), Boise State (floor), Southern Utah (vault), 1 p.m.

Session 2 • LSU (beam), Kentucky (bars), Utah State (floor), Temple/Arizona winner (vault), 7 p.m.

Saturday

Regional Final, top two teams from each Friday session, 7 p.m.

The Utes have a good vault team, ranking seventh nationally with a 49.356 national qualifying score. Yet the Utes have had their share of issues on the event, such as the recent Pac-12 Championships when they scored just 49.05. Alexia Burch, ranked 10th nationally, sat her vault and Cammy Hall, another sure vaulter, was replaced by Alani Sabado after a poor warmup. Sabado scored a 9.8 in her first collegiate vault.

The low team vault wasn’t enough to cost the Utes the Pac-12 Championship, but it demonstrated how tenuous the event can be.

“It’s such a fast event that if you make a mistake you don’t have much time to make a correction,” Utah sophomore Jaedyn Rucker said. “You can work on landing drills and stuff but the vaults don’t feel the same, it makes it hard to stick.”

Sticking landings is emphasized in all the events, but Farden pointed out the trajectory is different, making it harder. For instance, the swing setting up a landing on the bars is coming from the legs, whereas in the vault it is the hands.

“The center of gravity is different,” Farden said.

The difficulty in vault landings, as Rucker said, is when you are off just a little, it is hard to make a correction. That is why the Utes didn’t risk going with Hall’s 10.0 worth one-and-a-half vault and went with Sabado’s 9.95 valued full vault, because the landing isn’t blind.

At that point, the Utes only needed a safe vault, not a huge score, to win and Sabado delivered.

“It was exceptional,” Farden said. “You can’t be afraid to make changes if you have to.”

The interesting thing about the vault is, despite the individualism of gymnastics, momentum seems to build on that event more than any other one. If one gymnast sticks, the next often does and so on. As the Utes saw in the Pac-12s, the opposite can happen, too.

The last few practices have been about getting those landings down as well as they can, hoping to conjure up a little of that good momentum.

“We are working on the details,” Rucker said. “We’re looking for those extra half tenths.”

NCAA REGIONAL LINEUPS

National Qualifying Score in parentheses

Salt Lake City regional

LSU (197.813), Utah (197.556), Arizona State (197.088), Kentucky (196.969), Boise State (196.788), Southern Utah (196.675), Utah State (196.531), Temple (195.963), Arizona (195.781)

Athens regional

Florida (197.944), Minnesota (197.431), Denver (197.344), Illinois (196.863), Georgia (196.781), Oregon State (196.419), Central Michigan (196.275), NC State (196.25), Western Michigan (195.769)

Morgantown regional

Michigan (197.8), California (197.613), Brigham Young (197.069), UCLA (197.038), Ohio State (196.194), Towson (196.006), Kent State (195.981), Penn State (195.813), West Virginia (195.769)

Tuscaloosa regional

Oklahoma (197.944), Alabama (197.538), Arkansas (197.225), Auburn (196.875), Iowa (196.756), Iowa State (196.706), Missouri (196.444), Eastern Michigan (195.95), Maryland (195.913)