Oklahoma senior Karrie Thomas had one routine left at the NCAA Regionals in Tuscaloosa before national competition two weeks later in Fort Worth.
But now, OU will have to replace her in its bars and beam lineups after she missed her final landing on beam in Tuscaloosa and suffered a right mid-ankle sprain. When No. 1 Oklahoma takes the floor for the NCAA Semifinals on Friday, it’ll be the first time since Feb. 14, 2020, Thomas won’t be in the lineup for the Sooners.
“The good news is we won't have to replace her leadership because she'll be down on the floor with them, and her leadership is imperative to our success,” OU head coach K.J. Kindler said in a Tuesday press conference. “She's very disappointed to have fought so hard and gotten this far and then, in that very last routine of the regional, had that injury.”
Despite Thomas’ best efforts to get back to competition form, including icing her ankle often and swinging bars, she will only get to hold the role of a vocal leader at nationals. Her leadership became evident when, hobbled, with what appears to be a walking boot on her right ankle, Thomas stuck Oklahoma’s name to the board to advance to its final competition of the season.
BOOMER! ☝️ pic.twitter.com/mVAoYCHZX4
— Oklahoma Women's Gym (@OU_WGymnastics) April 4, 2021
“She’s nurturing (and) motherly, so she sees if someone’s going down the wrong path mentally or in a rut or needs a pep talk… she's very intuitive,” Kindler said. “That person is irreplaceable to me, because that person keeps the wheels turning, and she certainly does that.”
It’s telling that Kindler chose Thomas to remain on the floor for the weekend even though Oklahoma will face its stringest capacity requirements of the season. Seven gymnasts will travel to Fort Worth seperate from the rest of the team on Friday, and will be relegated to watching from the stands. And OU won’t be able to have all 25 people who break with its Wednesday traveling party on the floor at all times during competition.
If there’s any solace in Thomas’s absence from OU’s rotations, it’s that she’s already announced her intention to take the extra year of eligibility granted due to COVID-19 and return for the 2022 season.
With Thomas moving into the verbal leadership role, the attention shifts to senior Jordan Draper, who will replace Thomas on bars, and either sophomore Jenna Dunn or senior Evy Schoepfer will take Thomas’s spot on beam. Thomas’ replacements have big shoes to fill on both events. She had OU’s highest score on bars in the second round of regionals with a 9.95 and she added a career high 9.975 in the first round.
Prior to 2021 , Thomas hadn’t broken 9.9 on beam. After falling on the event at West Virginia on Jan. 22 — when OU was forced to count two falls on beam— four of her eight routines were at 9.95 or above, and her worst was only a 9.85. She only had two 9.95’s on bars this season, but four of her final six routines were at 9.9 or above.
Draper’s career high on bars is a 9.9, set earlier this season at the Metroplex Challenge on Feb. 13. Dunn holds a career high 9.925 on beam — a score she’s put up in both her freshman and sophomore seasons — and Schoepfer’s career high on beam is a 9.95, which she scored for the first time on March 5 against BYU in Norman.
Draper and Dunn or Schoepfer will likely have to match or exceed their best performances to date to help Oklahoma contend for its fifth national title this weekend. The NCAA Semifinals begin at 5 p.m. CT on Friday, April 16, in Fort Worth on ESPN2.
“We're training like we're number two,” Kindler said. “Not number one, because we're pushing to get that hard work in and put ourselves in a really good place moving in.
“You've got the best of the best that are going to be out there, and we leave tomorrow and the team is very excited and has had two great weeks to work out in preparation.”
