No. 23-ranked Denver will begin a two-meet gymnastics weekend on Friday, March 6, facing Air Force and San Jose State at the Cadet West Gym in Colorado Springs. The meet is scheduled for 7 p.m. MT and marks the first of two contests against Air Force in four days.
Fans planning to attend must obtain a visitor base access pass for entry to the U.S. Air Force Academy. A valid REAL ID is required, and passes should be requested online ahead of time.
In its most recent outing, Denver closed out its Big 12 Conference schedule with a score of 196.100 against Utah on March 1. The team achieved season highs on vault (49.175) and bars (49.150), maintaining its streak of not counting any falls this season despite some errors early in the bars and beam rotations.
The Utah meet also served as Senior Day for Denver, where each senior tied a career high: Mila Brusch scored a 9.900 on vault during her first appearance since the season opener; Cecilia Cooley earned a 9.925 on bars; and Kiley Rorich matched her best with a 9.900 on floor during her season debut in that event.
Denver is currently ranked No. 23 nationally after the Utah meet, returning to the top-25 in all four events following an improvement to No. 25 on vault and moving up to No. 21 on bars based on National Qualifying Score (NQS). Cooley remains tied for No. 25 nationally in all-around despite not competing last week, but was kept from improving her NQS due to an out-of-bounds error on floor; she is now tied for No. 23 nationally in that event.
Rorich received recognition as Big 12 Event Specialist of the Week after tying her career high with a score of 9.900 in her season debut on floor against Utah, especially notable because “her floor music cut out midway through her routine.”
Friday’s contest begins back-to-back meets between Denver and Air Force, with both teams set to compete again in Denver on Monday, March 9—a quick turnaround for DU this regular season.
As they finish their regular schedule with three non-conference meets starting this weekend’s series against Air Force, all fourteen DU gymnasts have participated fully at least once this year, each making collegiate debuts in at least one event.
Air Force enters Friday’s tri-meet amid a record-setting campaign, having established new program highs including an all-time best team score of 196.300 set recently at San Jose State and scoring a near-record mark of 195.825 at Utah State led by Maggie Slife’s all-around performance of 39.425 points. Slife has broken individual school records this year and ranks among the national top ten both overall and specifically on bars.
Historically, Denver holds a significant advantage over Air Force—109 wins to four losses—across more than five decades of competition between them.
Their last meeting took place March 3, 2024 in Denver where DU defeated AFA 198.025-194.050; prior to that DU won at USAFA February 17, 2023 by scoring 197.650-195.125.
This weekend marks only the seventh occasion since records began that these teams will face off twice within one week—the first such instance since March 2016.
San Jose State arrives following third place at its home quad meet involving Boise State, Arizona State and Sacramento State where it scored 195.925 points.
Sophie Patterson claimed titles both individually (all-around/beam), while Kaviana Jurries shared victory atop vault standings and Kaylee Larson did so for floor exercise.
Denver has prevailed across all nine previous meetings with SJSU—the most recent coming March 3rd last year when DU posted 198.025 ahead of SJSU’s second-place finish (196 .675).
The teams also met earlier last year at Las Vegas’ Super16 Challenge session which saw DU win their session while SJSU finished fourth among competitors there.
Denver will host its final home meet Monday , March 9 , again versus Air Force . Tickets remain available via phone , online or directly from Ritchie Center Box Office .
“Her floor music cut out midway through her routine.” — attribution: press release
