It was an ugly win, but a win over Georgia nonetheless. We'll take it. Utah's win over Georgia wasn't ugly because they performed poorly or had a bad night. The win was ugly because it took two falls off of beam and a near fall on Georgia's part for Utah to squeak out a win, 196.3 to Georgia's 196.2.
In typical fashion, the judging seemed rather lopsided in Georgia's favor. In one example, Utah was pretty solid on beam, with the occasional balance check or step on landing, but they were really solid, nary a shake. In recent years, I've had to hold my breathe watching Utah on beam. Last night, they were like the "Beam Team" of past years with rock solid performances, but the judges weren't giving up the scores they deserved.
Even when Georgia was performing well on beam, they seemed far less confident and when they didn't necessarily have a balance check, they were just shakey in general, definitely not as solid as Utah. Mauro on Georgia's team who nearly fell, but instead had a gigantic balance check and took a step on landing, still managed to score 9.75. Unbelievable. I would've given her a 9.6.
Robarts and DiLuzio started out on beam for Utah and their routines were far better and more solid with only tiny hops on landing and they managed to score lower than Mauro who nearly fell off.
While I'm certainly no expert, I've attended every Utah home meet, many of the away meets and a lot of the national championships over the past 17 years and I've gotten quite good at judging the routines myself. I'm generally pretty accurate in the score I arrive at, but tonight I scored Georgia a lot lower on bars and beam than the official judges did.
As the meet was going on, I wrote down my estimated score before I ever saw the judges scores. In some areas I was tougher on Utah than the judges were, but I still ended up pretty close to their final score. I gave Utah 196.325—only .025 more than the judges gave them. But the real discrepancy is in the Georgia scores. I scored them only 195.275 while the judges gave them 196.2. Nearly a full point lower. Now I must admit I thought it looked like Courtney Kupets made a big mistake on her bars routine and only gave her a 9.7, but I guess I was wrong there as the judges gave her a 9.95. Speaking of Kupets, I'll be extremely happy when she graduates as I think she's highly overrated.
I was also happy that Georgia started off their season in Utah, instead of the SEC, where they're more likely to get some realistic scores for a change.
I'm going to be keeping my eye on a certain judge who, from past experience, I think seems to judge Utah much more harshly than its competitors. I'll let you know what the results are later in the season.
Red Rocks edge past No. 1 Georgia
