Oklahoma Advances to National Championship

The Sooners took the top spot in Thursday's women's gymnastics semifinals and will move on to Saturday's NCAA Championship round against Utah and two others

John E. Hoover | Apr 14, 2022

Oklahoma Advances to National Championship /

The top-ranked Oklahoma Sooners moved on to the NCAA Championships Thursday with a dominant performance in the first semifinals at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, TX.

OU recorded a 198.113, comfortably ahead of second-place Utah. The Utes scored 197.713, which was good to push them past Minnesota (197.113) and Alabama (197.100).

The Sooners' total is the highest OU has ever scored in the semifinals and the fifth-highest at an NCAA Championship semifinal or final meet.

OU moves on to Saturday's finals. The Sooners are vying for their fifth overall NCAA title.

“Making it to the top eight is a really big win,” head coach K.J. Kindler said. “It’s very hard in our sport with the parity that exists across the board. Getting here, that was tough too. Our goal today was to win the session. I know we’re considered an underdog in this meet and we’re OK with that position. We know that the competition is tough. It’s going to be a battle all the way down to the last event on Saturday.”

OU’s meet began on the vault, and after one rotation, the Sooners sat in second place behind Utah with a 49.3500.

Senior Allie Stern got the day going for OU with a team-best 9.9375 on vault.

OU got another fast start on its second rotation — parallel bars — and pulled ahead for good with a strong team performance.

Freshman Danielle Sievers scored a 9.9, followed by sophomore Katharine LeVasseur’s 9.9375. Senior Olivia Trautman, on bars for the first time this season, scored a 9.8875. After junior Ragan Smith rang up a 9.8625, freshman Jordan Bowers carded a 9.9, followed by a team-best 9.95 from sophomore Audrey Davis.

That rotation pushed the Sooners ahead of the Utes by .0250, and that lead would hold up.

On balance beam, Trautman went second and scored a 9.9125 while LeVasseur followed with a 9.9. After Davis went 9.8625, Smith finished with a 9.925, stretching OU’s lead to .325 over Utah and a three-round score of 49.5125 with one event left.

The final rotation for Oklahoma was the floor, and the Sooners got a 9.9 from sophomore Bell Johnson, a 9.8875 from Woodard and back-to-back 9.9375s from freshmen Danae Fletcher and Sievers.

Oregon State's Jade Carey, competing as an individual, worked into Oklahoma's rotations and ended up winning the all-round competition in the first semifinal with a score of 39.650.

In the other semifinal on Thursday night, No. 2 seed Florida, No. 3 Michigan, No. 7 Auburn and No. 11 Missouri compete, with the top two teams advancing to meet OU and Utah on Saturday at noon. The finals will be televised by ABC.

OU is in the finals for the ninth consecutive year. The Sooners have now made 10 appearances in the team finals and are the only program to advance to every finals competition since 2013.

Published Apr 14, 2022

JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.