Oklahoma Sooners Steal Show At NCAA Gymnastics Championships

Saturday’s NCAA gymnastics team final in Fort Worth, Texas was expected to be close, and it was.

Oklahoma Sooners Steal Show At NCAA Gymnastics Championships

After just two events, Alabama led Oklahoma 98.700-98.675. Going into the last rotation, any of the top four teams had a chance at winning. The spread between first-place Oklahoma and fourth-place Florida was only 0.200.

However, in the end the No. 1 Oklahoma Sooners held onto the top spot to reach their first solo national title in school history. (Oklahoma and Florida tied to win the national championship in 2014)

The Sooners’ victory undoubtedly came as a bit of a surprise to many who believe there were many other much-stronger contenders for the national title. Here are six reasons why they won on Saturday:

They learned from last year. The top-ranked Sooners fell apart at the 2015 Super Six team final after early mistakes on bars. “Vault was not what we are capable of but instead of letting it break them down, they came back stronger and fought on bars, beam and floor all the way to the end,” coach K.J. Kindler said.

They’d lost this year. Oklahoma was ranked first for the entire 2015 season and came into the NCAA Championships undefeated. Therefore, a lot of pressure was put on the Sooners. This year, however, they lost to LSU in the very first meet of the season. “To me that was a table-turner,” Kindler said, “Last year we had the burden of an undefeated season on our shoulders and I felt like it was lifted immediately. I always feel like you grow from failure and I thought our team handled that loss well and decided they did not want to do that again.”

They don’t have any weak events, or weak scores in the lineup. Many teams have both stars and table-setters–in other words, the gymnasts who set up the others for the big scores. However, Oklahoma has one of the most complete teams in the NCAA, and on Saturday, they had no score lower than 9.775.

They are the most technically precise team in the country. Oklahoma’s routine execution–from the form, to the presentation, to the height of their skills–is near-perfect. The Sooners clearly spend a lot of time on the details, and the work put in shows.

The gymnasts really like each other. “This group in particular has a little extra something when it comes to their chemistry that I can’t really describe, and I always believe that chemistry wins championships,” Kindler said. “They are certainly technically good and they certainly executed well but I really feel that heart and that chemistry put them over the top at the end.”

They brought down the house on floor. The Sooners luckily ended their meet on the floor, and they arguably have the best floor lineup in the country. They have both beautiful dancers and powerful tumblers.

Senior Haley Scaman earned a 9.95, the highest score of the day. “In the beginning of my dance … I saw Keeley [Kmieciak] sobbing, and I kind of had a feeling we won then,” Scaman said, “I knew I had to stay focused. I wanted to finish with a bang on my last floor routine of my career.”

The Sooners also had the highest team total on floor, sealing their victory over LSU by 0.225.

Article by Pablo Mena