MORGANTOWN, West Virginia – University of Denver gymnast Jessica Hutchinson was named the Big 12 Gymnast of the Year for the second year in a row, the Big 12 Conference announced on Saturday following the Big 12 Gymnastics Championship.
 
The Denver junior finished the regular season as the only gymnast in the Big 12 Conference to score a perfect 10.0 on multiple events. Including her 10.0s on beam and floor, Hutchinson set or tied career highs on all four events plus the all-around; and she collected the first All-Big 12 Team honors of her career, doing so in the all-around and on beam.
 
Entering Saturday's Championship meet, Hutchinson held the eighth-highest all-around NQS in program history (39.535). She helped topple some of Denver's longest-standing program records including its overall team score, now 198.150 set on March 5, which took down a record that had stood since 2004. She also contributed to DU's 49.825 floor rotation that matched the best score in the country on any event this year and tied the eighth-highest floor score in NCAA history.
 
On February 5, the Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, native joined Denver's 10.0 club with her perfect score on floor. She added a second 10.0 this season, this time on beam on March 5. She became the eighth DU gymnast to score multiple 10.0s in her career and the fourth to do so on different events.
 
Hutchinson is the first Denver gymnast to win the award multiple times and is the first in the Conference to do so in consecutive years since Oklahoma's Chayse Capps in 2016 and 2017. She is now the sixth gymnast to win the award multiple times.
 
Denver gymnasts have now claimed the Big 12 Gymnast of the Year award for three years running after graduate student Lynnzee Brown first did so in 2021. Along with Nina McGee (2016), Hutchinson's two wins bring DU's total to four in its eight years in the Big 12 Conference.
 
Hutchinson placed second in the all-around at Saturday's meet after tying her career high of 39.625 – which she also scored at the 2022 Big 12 Championship – and helped lead Denver to a second-place finish with the seventh-highest postseason score in program history (197.175).
 
NCAA REGIONALS ARE COMING TO DENVER:
The University of Denver will host the 2023 NCAA Regional Gymnastics Championships on March 30 – April 2, 2023, in Magness Arena. All-session tickets are now on sale and can be purchased online or by calling 303-871-4625.

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