The women’s Oklahoma gymnastics squad began its new season on Saturday just where it ended the previous one: on top of the sport and with another championship trophy in hand.
The reigning national champions and this season’s preseason No. 1, the Oklahoma women opened 2020 and a new collegiate gymnastics season, capturing the Collegiate Challenge championship in Anaheim, California.
The Sooners took down three ranked teams in the process, defeating No. 4 UCLA, No. 9 California and No. 22 Stanford. Oklahoma has now won 21 consecutive regular-season competitions. Their last regular-season loss was almost two years ago, to Florida in 2018.
Oklahoma won three of the four team events, capturing top honors on vault, the uneven horizontal bars and balance beam. UCLA won floor exercise, with the Sooners finishing second.
“We had some hiccups in warmups, but they stayed totally cool out there,” said Sooner head coach K.J. Kindler, who is in her 14th season with the program.
“We have a couple of people out, so a lot of people had to step up. This is a big win for us in a lot of different ways.”
Eleven different Sooners competed in Anaheim, including two freshman who were making their collegiate debut.
A pair of Sooner gymnasts took high honors in two of the four individual events. Senior Maggie Nichols earned the high score on bars with a sensational score of 9.975. Junior Anastasia Webb shared the title in vault, tying Kyana George of Cal and Kyla Ross of UCLA, all with scores of 9.9.
Nichols, who finished second in the all-around in last year’s NCAA Women’s National Championships, recorded the highest all-around score for Oklahoma in Saturday’s Collegiate Challenge competition with a 39.525. UCLA’s Ross won the Collegiat Challenge all-around title with a score of 39.625.
Next up for the OU women gymnasts is a dual meet at Arizona State on Saturday. The event will be televised on ESPNU, beginning at 5:30 p.m. CT.