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SALT LAKE CITY — As the Red Rocks prepare for the semifinal round of nationals Thursday night, the team isn’t shying away from the reason they’re in Fort Worth, Texas.
The reasons have always been obvious — compete to win a national championship — but head coach Carly Dockendorf said the team has always treated the conversations surrounding nationals as somewhat of a “taboo” topic.
The mere mention of winning a championship, obviously, means it’s not going to happen, or so the thought seemingly went.
Not this season.
For the Red Rocks’ 49th straight appearance at nationals, the team is fully embracing the conversation about the desire to win a national championship for the first time since 1995.
“We’ve been talking about going for the national title (since) the beginning, which is something we’ve never done before,” Dockendorf said. “It was kind of always this taboo thing you didn’t want to talk about, you didn’t want to jinx it. But this year, we’ve really just embraced it, like that’s what we’re here to do.”
It may not seem like a big deal to the outside observer, but Dockendorf said she’s seen “more confidence” from her team “in being able to do it and go for it” by having those conversations.
Sometimes that’s enough in a sport where even the smallest mistake can be the difference in winning and losing.
For the Red Rocks to see that become a reality, Dockendorf said her team needs to hit on all four events in back-to-back meets. At regionals, Utah wasn’t able to put together complete meets; and with the raised level of competition at nationals, there’s little room for error.
“We definitely can’t only do three events,” Dockendorf said. “We absolutely have to go four events all the way through. We’ve talked about just starting the meet out aggressive.”
Utah will be in the evening meet — or second semifinal session — on Thursday (7 p.m. MDT, ESPN2) and will compete against No. 1 LSU, No. 5 UCLA and No. 8 Michigan State for a chance at a berth to Saturday’s four on the floor championship meet.
The top two teams at each semifinal will advance to Saturday’s championship meet (2 p.m. MDT, ABC).
The Red Rocks will begin their semifinal competition on beam, which Dockendorf believes is an “awesome event for us to get to do first up.” As such, it’s an opportunity for Utah to make a statement early on with one of its best events (Utah ranks third in the country on beam).
“There’s no opportunity to hold back, you’ve gotta just go for it and you’ve gotta just trust it right from the beginning all the way through the last routine,” Dockendorf said. “And that’s gonna be really important for us.”
Utah’s Grace McCallum competes on the beam during a gymnastics meet against Arizona at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. Utah won. (Photo: Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
Beam, Dockendorf said, has been a “high risk, high reward” event for her team this season; and at times, that high risk has caught up to the team.
Earlier in the season, the Red Rocks stumbled to an uncharacteristically low 48.200 against Arizona State. But the team has also scored a season-high 49.625, which is the fifth-highest beam score in the country.
Though Dockendorf isn’t shying away from staying aggressive and sticking with the “high risk, high reward” mentality with beam, she’s done some shuffling in the lineups to help maximize the team’s potential. The same six gymnasts remain, but there will be a new order Thursday night.
“We have some other routines that are safer, but the ability for them to score as high as some of the ones that we have aren’t there, and so we’ve just decided to kind of rearrange our beam lineup a little bit. … I think they like it. I think you guys will be excited about our new lineup,” Dockendorf said, while not tipping her hand at the lineup.
But beam will simply be the momentum driver to the night.
Utah will progress through the meet with floor and vault, before ending on bars, which has been a strong event for the Red Rocks this season. Grace McCallum is coming off back-to-back meets with a 10.0 on bars, but Utah has room to improve as it works to consistently land sticks on the dismount.
Once again, it’s the little things.
And much like Dockendorf’s beam mentality, there’s no reason to get conservative Thursday night.
“I mean, at this point, we just have to go for it,” she said. “And we’ve proven enough consistency. It’s not like we’re putting in routines that haven’t hit all season. These are skills they’ve been doing all year and with the ability to score really high. … So we’re gonna go for it at nationals.
“I honestly think they just need to believe that they can do it and trust in one another and care about one another all the way to the very end,” Dockendorf added. “That’s where that drive, that determination is going to come in; and belief, we’ve been talking about it all year, and this is the time.”
