WHO: Denver at No. 4 Utah
WHAT: Denver's first of three straight Big 12 meets
WHERE: Magness Arena (Denver, Colo.)
WHEN: Friday, February 21, at 7 p.m. MT
 
LAST TIME OUT:
Denver posted a season-high 197.125 to finish atop the final team standings in a home quad meet against No. 10 Oregon State (196.950), Ball State (194.950) and Texas Woman's (194.200) on February 16. DU set or tied season highs on vault, bars and beam while also improving on its previous season-best overall score by five tenths.
 
Sophomore Maddison Reidenbach and junior Cecilia Cooley won the vault and bars outright titles, respectively.
 
EYE ON THE RANKINGS:
This is the first week that national rankings are determined by National Qualifying Score (NQS). DU does not appear in this week's rankings because it has not competed in the minimum number of away meets to earn an NQS. Following Friday's meet at Utah, Denver will have three road scores and be able to generate an NQS ahead of the Week 8 rankings that will be released on February 24.
 
In the final rankings determined by season average, Denver was ranked No. 21 overall and added a No. 9 ranking on bars and No. 13 on vault.
 
QUICK HITS:

• With the win against Oregon State, Ball State and Texas Woman's, Joy S. Burns Head Women's Gymnastics Coach Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart eclipsed the 500^th win mark for her career (now at 502).
  • She is now the third active NCAA Division I women's gymnastics head coach to achieve such a milestone (joining Michigan's Bev Plocki [1000] and Oklahoma's KJ Kindler [615]).
• Graduate student Rylie Mundell owns 40 career titles and is four away from moving into Denver's top 10 all-time.
• With her near-perfect 9.975 on vault that matched the highest score on the event in the country so far this year, Reidenbach was named the Big 12 Event Specialist of the Week.
  • She was one of three DU gymnasts to set or tie a career high in the February 16 quad meet (also: Cooley on bars and beam, and sophomore Madison Ulrich on beam).
• Utah will be the sixth opponent to be nationally ranked at the time of its meet against Denver and the third to be ranked in the top 10 (joining No. 5 Missouri on January 12 and No. 10 Oregon State on February 16).
  • In total, more than half of Denver's opponents so far (including No. 4 Utah) appear in the top 20 in the Week 7 national rankings.
  • All four of Denver's remaining regular-season meets also feature an opponent that is currently ranked in the top 25: No. 4 Utah (February 21), No. 16 Stanford (March 14), No. 18 NC State (February 28) and No. 25 Arizona State (March 9).

SCOUTING THE RED ROCKS:
Utah is coming off a narrow 196.600-196.475 win at Big 12 Conference-opponent Arizona State on February 14. The Red Rocks are the top team in the nation on beam and add top-five national rankings on the other three events. Two Utah gymnasts rank in the top 10 nationally in the all-around (Makenna Smith at No. 4 and Grace McCallum at No. 8), and each own two more top-10 rankings on individual events as well.
 
This will be the 21^st all-time meeting between Denver and Utah but only the eighth in the regular season. The teams have not met since 2017 when they faced each other three times, starting with another DU trip to Salt Lake City on January 20 (197.625-196.875 Utah win). Utah and Denver went 1-2 at the 2017 Fayetteville Regional to advance to the NCAA National Championships with Utah finishing just one tenth ahead of DU (197.150-197.050). At the 2017 NCAA semifinals, Utah placed third in the session (197.050) while Denver was fifth (196.475).
 
View DU's complete history against Utah.
 
NEXT UP:
Denver continues a two-meet road trip at Big 12 Conference opponents when it travels to Iowa State for a tri meet with NC State on Friday, February 28.
 
TICKETS:
Tickets for the 2025 University of Denver gymnastics season are now on sale and can be purchased online, by calling 303-871-4625 or by visiting the Ritchie Center Box Office.
 
Denver's Home for College Sports
Like Denver Pioneers and Denver Gymnastics on Facebook.
Follow @DU_Pioneers and @DU_Gymnastics on Twitter.
Follow @DenverPioneers and @Denver_Gymnastics on Instagram.