For Brie Olson, OU’s pair of weekend contests will be a welcomed reunion of sorts.

The junior from St. Cloud, Minn., knows gymnasts on all four programs the Sooners face tonight and Sunday — No. 9 Nebraska, No. 25 Minnesota, Centenary and No. 2 Arkansas.

In fact, Nebraska’s Kassandra Nathe has been Olson’s best friend for a long time, Olson said.

“We still talk all the time,” she said. “It’s going to be exciting seeing her.”

Olson and Nathe trained together at Minnesota’s renowned Twin City Twisters, one of the nation’s top gymnastics clubs, OU coach KJ Kindler said.

“[It’s] a really dominant club, and a lot of their athletes have gone on to college, so [Olson] runs into them quite often, I think,” Kindler said. “All the athletes from there are exceptional.”

All in all — including Olson and Nathe — seven Twin City gymnasts will be competing in tonight’s quad meet at Lloyd Noble Center, and another is waiting for Sunday’s meet in Arkansas.

“They’re a lot of my good friends, and they always will be,” Olson said. “It’s like our whole team is back together at this meet. We’re all on separate teams, but I feel like it’s not that big of a deal. It’s like a family reunion.”

And if the gymnasts are family, their mother will be in Norman to see them all compete, too. Kim Good, who relocated to Texas about the same time Olson graduated, coached many of the girls — especially Olson, Nathe and Arkansas’ Bailee Zumwalde when they were younger — Olson said.

“She gets to see all her little babies,” she said. “She raised us all.”

Though she was close with the other gymnasts, Olson said her decision to come to OU instead of joining friends at another program had nothing to do with getting away because she said she still gets to see them from time to time.

But teammates sometimes reunite once again on the same team, as another pair of Sooner gymnasts know all too well.

Sophomores Taylor Spears and Lara Albright have known each other since they were 12 years old, when they trained together at World Olympics Gymnastics Academy in the Dallas area.

“They’ve been fast friends for a long time,” Kindler said. “They’re buddies — always have been.”

When it came time to choose schools, though, the pair initially took separate paths: Spears to OU, Albright to Washington. But when Washington wasn’t a good fit, Albright looked to transfer to Oklahoma.

“She was probably my best friend at WOGA, and it was sad to go separate ways,” Spears said. “But I think everything happens for a reason. She’s here now, and I’m glad she transferred.”

Albright wanted to be closer to home and at a place with coaches she feels could help her be more successful, but being reunited with Spears was another welcomed benefit at OU, she said.

“We’re together a lot of the time,” Albright said. “On our days off, we’ll go to lunch together anyway, and we actually have a class together this semester. I’ve never had class with her before.”

Spears said the advantages to having an old friend on your team extend far beyond someone to hang out with or help with homework.

“We both have seen each other at our worst points and our best points. We know a lot about each other,” she said. “It gives us the ability to push each other in different ways than our teammates can.”

Whether old teammates are on another team or the same team, though, all three gymnasts agreed being reunited with old friends is comfortable — like being back at their old gym with their old team.