The Oklahoma Sooners Women's Gymnastics Team is simply the best! Their team score of 198.3875 is just one more of a sting of 198+ totals that the Sooners have put on the board this season. As the demand for higher scores is driven within the sport, the Sooners step up and deliver the higher scores with amazing consistency across all four events and as a team.
Oklahoma outscored Florida 198.2375, Utah 197.9375 and LSU 197.5250. With the 198+ score in the Finals, the Sooners posted a nation-leading 10 scores of at least 198 in 2023, tied for the most in NCAA history.
While the ABC pre-meet and live presentation focused on individual performances, the best team in the country, just did it the Sooner-Way. A team of great gymnasts outperformed the individuals that were focused on by ABC. Shame on ABC. While there are individual awards, the TEAM AWARD is the goal of NCAA. Oklahoma delivered a great story for ABC to focus on, if they had chosen to do so. But as was noted, there were t-shirts being worn in the arena that read, "Anyone but OU!". I think ABC ight have gotten caught up in that. While Bart Conner and his co-hosts gave OU their due (Especially Cooner by driving them in that direction) when they had to, they were focused elsewhere in my opinion.
Oklahoma put up a low of 46.5125 on the Beam and a high of 49.6750 on Floor in the Finals. Their 49.5625 on Vault and 49.6375 on bars were scores sandwiched between the high and low with only a 0.1625 difference between them. That is a recipe of success and a nice tasting sandwich as well. The fabulous young women with nerves of steel for OU gymnastics only scored lower than 9.9000 5 times in the finals. FIVE times out of 24 routines filled with the difficulty to win and the attention to detail it takes to score like champions. The Sooners had as many scores of 9.9500 as they had below 9.9000. That is amazing to me. (OU also had 5 individual marks of 10 on the day as well.)
Here is the staff wrtiers article about the Women's Gymnastics performance on Saturday.
https://soonersports.com/news/2023/4/15 ... onal-title
Starting on Vault, the Sooners counted their only sub-9.900 score as they used Levasseur's 9.8875 along with two 9.900's by Stern and Bowers. Torrez posted a 9.925 before the veteran Trautman posted her 9.9500. The Sooners total of 49.5625 on the vault team score was 2nd on the day to Florida by 0.0125.
On the Bars, the Sooners counted scores of 9.9125 and greater for their 49.6375. Fletcher posted the 9.9125, Sievers, Bowers and Davis posted 9.925s and Trautman posted her second 9.9500 of the day. OU's total was 2nd behind Florida by 0.0750.
On the Beam, two balance wobbles caused two scores under 9.9000 for the Sooners. They used the 9.9850 posted by Dunn. Torrez and Smith posted a 9.9000, Bowers a 9.9125 with Davis posting a 9.950 for the 49.5125 team score. The Sooners were third on the event behind Utah with their 49.7375 and Florida's 49.5250. (The key was that the Sooners were behind Florida by 0.0125.)
On the Floor and their final event, the Sooners posted all six scores 9.9000 or above.. They tossed the 9.9000 by Davis to open the event. Smith followed with a 9.9125, Bowers raise the Sooner scores to 9.9500 with her routine before Torrez posted a 9.9250 to build a huge base for the Sooner scoring. When Fletcher posted a 9.9375 the Sooners had a 49.6250 for what was probably enough to win the championship. I think this is when Mr. Connors announced that OU had won their 6th of the last 9 championships. When Sievers posted her 9.9500 the winning margin was widened by 0.0500 more points for Oklahoma for a 49.6750 total on the Floor. Oklahoma won the Floor event and distanced Florida by 0.2500 points on the device to make up the difference of 0.1000 on the other three events.
OU's six women's gymnastics national titles are tied for the most over a nine-year span in NCAA history (Utah won six of the first nine NCAA championships from 1982-90).
"What these women did today was absolutely incredible," said OU head coach K.J. Kindler. "It was a unique day from the minute we woke up, with one of our assistant coaches, Ashley Kerr, going into labor and having her baby here in Fort Worth at 9:30. Our team really rallied around her and it was very exciting for them. Maybe it gave them another purpose to win today — to do it for her. I was just so impressed by the way they took over the arena from the very beginning of the meet all the way to the end. And then when they were pushed, they didn't falter. I'm just incredibly proud of their performance."
"From March 1 to now, our gymnasts have been relentless on floor," said Kindler. "They've gone into the gym, worked out the kinks, put in all the work; because we had been inconsistent with our performances. They put themselves in such a great place after the regional and hitting floor the way they did then. It was perfect that we ended on that event today. Just perfect."
Congratulations to the Team, to Coach KJ Kindler and her staff and to Ashley Kerr for her new baby.
Maybe the City on Norman is going to have to change the name of Imhoff where it runs in front of the Viersen Center and the Love's Field to "Natty Row" or "Champions Home" or something clever. The recent $13.5 million upgrade is well earned for the Women and Men Gymnastics Programs.
The excellence of the Oklahoma Women's Gymnastics Program is something that every Sooner should be very proud of. Every Day!
Boomer Sooner!