DENVER -- The University of Denver women's gymnastics team concludes its four-meet road trip with a visit to No. 11 Southern Utah on Monday night. The meet will be DU's second of the weekend after a quad meet at Oklahoma with Nebraska and Texas Woman's on Friday.

MEET #6: No. 8 Denver (10-3, 0-2 Big 12) at No. 11 (tie) Southern Utah (2-1, 0-1 MRGC)

Date and Time: Monday, February 6, at 7 p.m. MT
Location: Centrum Arena/5,300 (Cedar City, Utah)
Tickets: Buy Tickets
Live Stream: FloGymnastics
Live Stats: SUU live stats
Meet Info: DU meet notes | SUU meet notes
Facebook: /DenverGymnastics | /DenverPioneers
Twitter: @DU_Gymnastics | @DU_Pioneers
Instagram: @DU_Gymnastics | @DenverPioneers

ROAD WARRIORS
DU's meet on Monday at Southern Utah will be the team's second in just four days. The Pioneers competed at No. 1 Oklahoma on Friday night along with No. 20 Nebraska and Texas Woman's.

Monday's meet wraps up Denver's four-meet road trip, which featured quad meets at Utah on January 20 and at West Virginia on January 29.

FAB FRESHMEN
Denver's freshman class has made an impact already, accounting for nearly a third of all of the team's routines so far in 2017. Maddie Karr (Stillwater, Minn.) has competed in the all-around in all five meets, contributing all but one score to the team total. Courtney Loper (West Des Moines, Iowa) has appeared in seven routines--five on floor and two on beam--counting all seven scores. Sam Ogden (Allen, Texas) has also competed seven times--four times on bars and three times on beam--and has contributed all but one score.

Karr has the team's highest average in the all-around (39.330) and on vault (9.870). Ogden leads DU on bars with a 9.875 average. Karr's 9.825 average on bars in third best on the team, as is Loper's 9.825 average on beam.

RETURNERS STEPPING UP
DU welcomed back seniors Leah Lomonte (Katy, Texas) and Rachel Fielitz (Walden, N.Y.) to line ups this season after both missed the 2016 season with injuries. Lomonte has returned as a bars specialist and set a career high (9.875) on January 20. Fielitz competes on vault and beam, and has the team's second-highest vault score this season (9.900).

Senior Julia Ross (Henderson, Nev.) and junior Nikole Addison (Fort Myers, Fla.) are competing in the all-around, each for the first time since 2015. Ross has DU's highest average on beam (9.840) and has counted all 20 of her routines this year. Addison leads the team on floor (9.875 average) and has contributed all but two routines.

Sophomore Kaitlyn Schou (Orlando, Fla.) returns as a three-event specialist, contributing all of her scores on vault, beam and floor. She is second only to Ross in average scoring on beam (9.830) and has the third-highest average on floor (9.800).

WHAT TO WATCH FOR
Vault: DU continues to compete with only five student-athletes on vault, led by Karr who has two scores of 9.925 this year. Ross is close behind with a 9.850 average on the event after tying her season high on Friday night with a 9.875. Both Schou and Addison have set career highs on the vault this year.

Bars: Ogden, Ross and Karr have DU's top three bars averages this season. Both Ogden and Ross have hit the 9.900 mark to set or tie their career bests. Sophomore Diana Chesnok (Charlotte, N.C.) returned to competition with a 9.775 on bars on Friday after missing the first month of the season with an injury.

Beam: Leading Denver on beam is Ross with a 9.840 average. She tied her personal best of 9.925 this season to have the team's highest score on the event. Karr has the team's next highest tally on beam with a 9.900--and four of her five scores have been 9.875 or higher. Schou has two additional scores of 9.875 for the Pioneers, which is her career high.

Floor: Addison anchors DU's floor line up and has two of the top scores on the event this year: a 9.900 and a personal-best 9.925. Karr, too, has a 9.900 while she, Addison and Loper have each posted a 9.875 this year. Nearly half of the team's floor routines have scored at least a 9.800--even with only five gymnasts on the event in each meet.

EYE ON THE RANKINGS
New national rankings will be released on Monday morning, before the DU and Southern Utah meet. In the rankings released on January 30, DU held the No. 8 spot, which set a new program record for most consecutive weeks inside the top 10 with four straight. DU opened the season with the No. 7 ranking for the first three weeks. The previous record was three weeks in 2003.

As of January 30, DU was also ranked in the top 15 on all four events: No. 8 on bars (49.113 season average), tied for No. 9 on floor (49.075), No. 13 on beam (49.025) and No. 14 on vault (49.038).

Individually, four DU student-athletes held top 25 spots in the January 30 rankings. Karr was tied for No. 22 in the all-around (39.313) and tied for No. 17 on vault (9.881). Ross was No. 25 in the all-around (39.281) and tied for No. 25 on bars (9.850). Ogden was tied for No. 14 on bars (9.875), and Addison was tied for No. 17 on floor (9.888).

LAST TIME OUT
Karr and Ross both finished in the top-three in the all-around to lead DU to a second-place finish when it visited fellow Big 12 competitor and No. 1-ranked Oklahoma for its fourth-straight quad meet with No. 20 Nebraska and Texas Woman's. Karr placed second in the all-around with a 39.400, while Ross was third overall with a 39.350. Karr also added a third-place finish on floor with her team-high 9.875.

DU's strongest event of the night was beam, finishing with a team total of 49.125 to match the second-highest score this season. Four of the Pioneers' scores were above a 9.800 with a 9.875 from Karr, a 9.850 from Ross and 9.825s from Loper and Schou.

Ross had the Pioneers' top scores on vault (9.875) and bars (9.850).

Denver had the second highest team totals of the meet on beam and floor--only behind host Oklahoma.

ABOUT SOUTHERN UTAH
Like Denver, Southern Utah will be competing for the second time this weekend. The Thunderbirds traveled to Boise State for a conference match-up on Friday night and fell to the Broncos 194.325-197.025. Madison McBride shared the vault title while teammate Danielle Ramirez finished in a five-way tie for first on floor. Ramirez also finished second in the all-around, and Kirsten Yee placed second on beam.

THE MATCH-UP
Denver is 25-12 all-time against Southern Utah after winning the teams' last meet on January 9, 2016, by a final score of 195.375-194.100. DU last visited Cedar City on February 27, 2015, finishing second a tight competition 196.100-196.475. Denver tied the second-highest vault score in program history during that meet in 2015.

This will be DU's first road meet against SUU since joining the Big 12 Conference. In 2014 and 2015, Denver was a member of the Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference with Southern Utah.

- JOIN THE DENVER PIONEER NATION --

Visit DenverPioneers.com for complete coverage of all 17 of DU's NCAA Division I sports.

Like Denver Pioneers and Denver Gymnastics on Facebook.

Follow @DU_Pioneers and @DU_Gymnastics on Twitter.

Follow @DenverPioneers and @DU_Gymnastics on Instagram.