FORT WORTH, Texas — The Oklahoma Sooners had 366 days to stew on their early exit from the 2024 NCAA gymnastics championships and the denial of their quest for a three-peat.
After being inundated with a seemingly never-ending replay of what went wrong and, according to head coach K.J. Kindler, frequent criticism and hate, Oklahoma officially reclaimed its place atop the college gymnastics world by winning the NCAA women’s title Saturday with a 198.0125 final score, 0.4 better than runner-up UCLA.
It marked the Sooners’ third NCAA team title in four years and their seventh since 2014.
While the disappointment from the 2024 season made the victory even sweeter, Kindler insisted the team wasn’t thinking about redemption entering Saturday’s final at Dickies Arena — even if everyone else was.
“Our theme wasn’t redemption this year at all,” Kindler told reporters just moments after the team hoisted the trophy. “We did our best to put it behind us. It just was following us everywhere and so it was almost impossible. Every time you look in the rearview mirror, it was just there.
“And so does it make it sweet? Yes, but this team was capable of this last year. We just failed. And people fail all the time. They fail every day. And we talk about [it] all the time that the glory is in getting back up again.”
Oklahoma opened the meet on balance beam and set the tone for an impressive afternoon. Freshman Lily Pederson, who fell on the event during the semifinals Thursday, had one of the best performances of her college career with a 9.9375 in the third position. With six gymnasts competing on each event and the top five scores counting toward the total, the Sooners didn’t have to include a score under 9.90. Their 49.6125 put them in a tie with UCLA, which opened on floor, for the early lead.
After that, the Sooners took control, grabbing a .300 lead over the Bruins at the halfway mark, and never looked back.
“We did exactly what we do at the gym every single day,” fifth-year senior Audrey Davis said. “We didn’t change it, we didn’t try and be different. We went out there and we did our gymnastics. We left it all out on the floor, we really did. We ended on empty. And that was a big thing for our team, to really go out there and just do our normal, not to be any different, not to put too much pressure on ourselves [and] to really just enjoy it. And it started on beam. We fricking did that and then we went on and on and on and it was just amazing.”
By the time Oklahoma had finished its third rotation on vault and further extended its lead, the team appeared jovial and was seen dancing while waiting to rotate to its final event.
The final rotation on uneven bars felt more like a victory lap. The Sooners waited to formally cheer and react to what they had accomplished after the final scores were posted on the jumbotron, but their excitement was palpable and it was clear they knew well before it was official. Despite some strong performances by UCLA on beam during the fourth rotation, including a pair of 9.9375 scores by junior Jordan Chiles and senior Emma Malabuyo, the deficit was too much for the Bruins to overcome.
While not the result it had wanted, UCLA ultimately had its best result since 2019 with its second-place finish. Chiles had the best all-around score in the competition with a 39.7750 on the day.
Utah initially appeared to finish in third place before a last-minute score inquiry increased Missouri’s final total. Ultimately the Tigers finished in third place — the program’s best-ever result in its first final appearance — and Utah ended in fourth place. Many of the Red Rocks, including star senior Grace McCallum, appeared to be crying during the trophy presentation.
Utah’s reaction was a stark contrast to that of Oklahoma, just several feet away. The Sooners led a “Boomer Sooner” chant while waiting to accept their trophy and then danced to DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win” while confetti rained down.
But it was the 2024 result that helped propel the team to victory.
Oklahoma used it as motivation throughout the preseason and throughout the regular season. Despite being ranked No. 1 for much of the regular season, Kindler and the Sooners referred to themselves as “underdogs” and believed they had something to prove. Having fallen in the semifinals last season after recording three uncharacteristic landing errors on vault, the team’s first event of the meet, Oklahoma admitted there was some relief Thursday after advancing, and Kindler said she was grateful “the dragon had been slayed.” She added she never again wanted “to see TV footage of Oklahoma falling over and over again on vault.”
With that weight lifted, and perhaps with the shocking semifinal elimination of LSU — the defending national champions and perhaps Oklahoma’s fiercest rival and threat for the title — the Sooners were able to simply focus on their performances Saturday afternoon. It was something Kindler had said they needed to figure out Thursday after their semifinal.
“After advancing, and we got to today, we were free,” Davis said. “We had no weight on our shoulders. We were free to do our best gymnastics.”
Added senior Jordan Bowers, who won the individual all-around title Thursday, “We were all very present, too. I would say that’s something our coaches have really talked to us about, especially this weekend, [just] being present and not thinking too far ahead or in the past.”
So while Kindler and the Sooners might not have been focused on redemption, they achieved it — and then some — with their staggering turnaround from one year ago.
With its seven team championships, Oklahoma moves into a tie with UCLA for third all time, trailing only Georgia (10) and Utah (9). While the Sooners are losing Davis, Bowers and Danielle Sievers, the team should remain among the front-runners to win the title in 2026. They return several star underclassmen, including junior Faith Torrez and Pederson. And Danae Fletcher, a senior who has been unable to compete since the first meet of the 2024 season due to two ACL tears, announced Saturday she would be coming back for a fifth year.
