No. 1 Oklahoma (23-1, 3-0 Big 12) moved on to the NCAA Semifinals with a meet-high 198.050 along with No. 9 Kentucky (12-4, 6-2 SEC) on Saturday.
After a stellar opening rotation on bars which resulted in the best bars regional score in program history, OU moved to beam where the first two gymnasts in senior Jenna Dunn and fifth-year senior Olivia Trautman suffered back-to-back falls on beam, meaning the Sooners squad had to count one of those scores towards the event total.
Although head coach K.J. Kindler noted Dunn had a rough morning, which involved throwing up at 4 a.m, Kindler almost felt responsible for the errors.
Kindler is also the beam coach and following warmups at meets, she determines all final lineups. If Kindler doesn’t put the best combination of athletes up in a lineup that warmed up well and ones that feel confident in themselves, OU can’t compete to the best of its ability and Kindler feels accountable.
“It’s their dream on the line,” a slightly teary-eyed Kindler told the media. “I feel very responsible for their dreams and so I don’t want to keep them out. The words ‘we can do this, we gotta do this,’ like that’s all I kept thinking about.”
Kindler said after Trautman’s fall, she kept track of tenths in her head following each routine for the rest of the night, calculating whether or not her team could come back and advance to their 19th-straight national championship semifinal.
“I knew if we got over a 49 with a fall, that we were in it,” Kindler said. “And so I just kept doing that all the way until the end, quite honestly. I know how this works, you know, and I know what’s gonna give them a shot. So my goal in my head was… if they get over a 49, we’re in this thing and they got a 49.075 so that was pretty incredible.”
Freshman Faith Torrez played a helping hand in bringing the rotation back on track with her career-high-tying 9.975 and stuck landing.
Freshman Faith Torrez came up HUGE for @OU_WGymnastics with a 9.975 after back-to-back falls on beam 👏 pic.twitter.com/FIwkUgY9O3
— espnW (@espnW) April 1, 2023
Following the rotation, the Sooners were in third behind No. 8 Kentucky and No. 16 Ohio State and needed to catch some momentum if they wanted to place high enough to advance.
Luckily, the Sooners would come roaring back on floor and vault, headlined by junior Katherine LeVasseur’s perfect 10 vault, her third this season and fourth of her career.
Katherine Levasseur with a PERFECT 10 on the vault 😤#ThatsaW I @OU_WGymnastics pic.twitter.com/KIYRMK2XsB
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 1, 2023
Kindler and her gymnasts believe the 10 along with the passionate crowd were important steps in the win and what helped her team seal the deal in the victory.
“Being in front of a home crowd is definitely an advantage to us and they were so freaking loud today,” sophomore Jordan Bowers said. “... Just an amazing environment to be in and that really just rallied us together as well to keep the momentum going.”
Besides the win, an OU gymnast won each individual event title, with half of OU’s floor rotation winning a share of the seven-way tie for first place on floor. OU also matched the best floor score in the program’s postseason history with its 49.675.
The Sooners have yet to put their best meet on all four events together but know nationals will be the place to do it. Senior Ragan Smith said it best:
“We’ve worked way too hard not to be there.”
This story was edited by Austin Curtright and Colton Sulley.
