Oklahoma gymnastics: No. 1 OU women win season-opening Super 16 meet
By Chip Rouse
No. 1-ranked women’s Oklahoma gymnastics opened the 2023 season capturing top honors in the inaugural Super 16 competition in Las Vegas on Saturday.
The Sooners winning team score of 197.925 was the highest score posted in the country on opening weekend for NCAA women’s gymnastics. It was the second highest opening score in OU program history. The 2019 Oklahoma women’s squad scored an opening score of 198.050 in a competition against Arkansas.
On 2023 season opener in Las Vegas, the OU women defeated No. 4 Michigan (197.400), No. 5 Auburn (197.350) and UCLA (197.275).
Oklahoma finished first in floor exercise (49.525) and also on the beam, posting the highest season-opening score in the country (49.525).
Sophomore Jordan Bowers won the vault competition with an impressive score of 9.975. She also came in second in the all-around with a career-best score of 39.650. Junior Audrey Davis was fifth in the all-around with a score of 39.500.
Sooner freshman Faith Torrez was co-champion in the floor exercise rotation with a 9.950 in her collegiate debut.
Eleven different OU gymnasts competed in the Super 16 event, and it was the collegiate debut for Sooners, Torrez and teammate Ava Siegfeldt.
Two Sooners, sophomore Danielle Sievers and junior Katherine LeVasseur, were limited in their activity while nursing injuries.
“This was a group effort,” longtime Sooner head coach K.J. Kindler said in a news release posted on the OU athletic website. “We had a lot of new routines out there, and it was exciting to see how aggressive everyone was.”
Next up for Kindler’s top-ranked women’s squad is a dual competition against sixth-ranked LSU on Jan. 16 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.