“This was character-building for this team,” Oklahoma Coach K.J. Kindler said afterward on the ESPN broadcast. “They fought back hard. It was emotional. I give them all the credit for gutting it out through the whole end of it. It was tough.”
The Sooners’ unraveling began at the start. On vault, the Sooners’ first apparatus of the evening, three Oklahoma gymnasts had major mistakes. Faith Torrez, the first gymnast to compete, fell on her 1½-twisting vault, then Jordan Bowers and Katherine LeVasseur barely stayed on their feet with multiple deep steps backward on the same skill. Teams can only drop one score per apparatus so two of those low marks (9.45 and 9.375) factored into the Sooners’ total.
From then on, Oklahoma’s chances of a comeback were slim and probably would have required major mistakes from other teams. Alabama had a meltdown on beam with four falls, but Utah (197.9375 final score) and Florida (197.875) held steady. The Sooners’ hopes evaporated in the third rotation when LeVasseur and Ava Siegfeldt fell during their beam routines.
“They were trying to put everything into it, but at the same time, the emotions, I think, were taking over a little bit,” Kindler said of her team’s response to the early mistakes on vault.
Oklahoma may have been able to weather its errors on the beam, especially with the other four gymnasts scoring a 9.9375 or higher, if not for the disastrous start on vault.
In that first rotation, Oklahoma tallied a 48.325, more than a point lower than the majority of the team’s showings on that apparatus this season. The Sooners hadn’t scored that low on any apparatus since January 2021, and since 2012 Oklahoma had previously struggled that much on only two occasions.
The hallmark of this Oklahoma team had been its consistency, which makes Thursday’s disappointing showing all the more jarring. Before this competition, Oklahoma hadn’t scored lower than a 197.775 all season. Several hours before the Sooners’ session began, LSU Coach Jay Clark called Oklahoma the “prohibitive favorite” to win the final.
The Sooners have notched 11 of the top 20 scores in the country this season, according to Road to Nationals, the website that maintains all NCAA gymnastics scores. That’s the most scores in the top 20 for any team since 1998, when Road to Nationals began recording data.
The Sooners’ extraordinary dominance made them appear unstoppable. With a successful showing here en route to another national title, this Oklahoma squad may have been considered the greatest NCAA gymnastics team ever. But now, despite their accomplishments before this weekend, the Sooners will be remembered as the juggernaut that finished with a shocking collapse.
Christine Lake is a sports fanatic who lives and breathes athletics. With an extensive background in sports journalism, he covers everything from major league championships to grassroots sports events. When she’s not on the field or at the stadium, you’ll find Christine coaching youth sports teams.
