The women’s Oklahoma gymnastics squad recorded the top score in the second session of the second round of the NCAA Norman Regional on Thursday and advanced to the regional final on Saturday.
It wasn’t the top-ranked Sooners’ best performance of the season, but it was enough to get the job done and keep their dreams alive for a second consecutive national championship and what would be six national titles in the last 10 years.
The OU women scored 197.925 to defeat No. 16 Ohio State, No. 17 Arkansas and No. 30 North Carolina State in their session. Ohio State, as the second-place finisher in OU’s session with a team score of 197.350, will advance along with the Sooners and the team from No. 8 Alabama and No. 9 Kentucky, the top two teams in the first session on Thursday, to compete for the regional championship.
Sophomore Jordan Bowers and senior Ragan Smith posted perfect 10s in winning the uneven bars and beam individual titles, respectively. It was Bowers’ fourth career NCAA Regional title and the first for Smith. Sooner super senior Olivia Trautman was the individual champion on vault with a score of 9.950. For Trautman, it was her third NCAA Regional individual championship.
The Sooners as a team won three of the four events (vault, bars and beam) in the Thursday evening session. Ohio State finished first in floor exercise.
The top two teams from the regional final on Saturday will advance to the NCAA Championship in Ft. Worth, Texas, April 13-15. In addition, the top four individual champions and the all-around champion not from one of the advancing teams will advance. Eight teams in all (two each from the four regional sites) will compete for the national championship.