Courtesy Utah Athletics
FORT WORTH, Texas – Utah’s Georgia Dabritz was honored as the nation’s top senior gymnast Wednesday night at a banquet preceding the NCAA Championships, which start Friday. The AAI Award, which is voted on by the nation’s gymnastics coaches, is considered the Heisman Trophy for gymnastics. Dabritz won out against an extremely strong field that included Erica Brewer, Oklahoma; Rheagan Courville, LSU; Kytra Hunter, Florida; Samantha Peszek, UCLA and Sachi Sugiyama, Michigan.
Dabritz becomes the fourth Utah gymnast to win the AAI Award, joining Missy Marlowe (1992), Theresa Kulikowski (2003) and Ashley Postell (2008).
The 2015 Pac-12 Gymnast of the Year, Dabritz won the all-around and floor titles at the Pac-12 Championship and followed up by winning every event and the all-around at the NCAA Regional Championship. Also the Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year, Dabritz enters the NCAA Championships ranked No. 1 in the nation on the bars and is No. 3 on vault and No. 9 on floor. Her 39.775 winning all-around score at the Pac-12 Championships is the second-best all-around score in the nation this year and she won bars in 10 of 12 meets. A 13-time All-American, Dabritz scored a 10.0 on bars (3 times) and vault and has 31 wins this season.
The six-time Pac-12 champion won every major Pac-12 award during her career. Dabritz was the Pac-12 Gymnast of the Year (2015), Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year (2015), Pac-12 Specialist of the Year (2014) and Pac-12 Freshman of the Year (2012).
Utah opens NCAA Championships’ competition on Friday at 1 p.m. CT (noon MT) in the Fort Worth Convention Center Arena. The Utes must finish in the top three to advance to the Super Six on Saturday at 6 p.m. CT (5 p.m. MT).