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Oklahoma gymnastics: Defending champion OU advances to 2023 NCAA Championship finals

By Chip Rouse

Oklahoma's Olivia Trautman scores a perfect 10 on the vault during a women's college gymnastics meet between the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and Florida at Lloyd Noble in Norman, Okla., Friday, March 3, 2023.ouwgym -- print1
Oklahoma's Olivia Trautman scores a perfect 10 on the vault during a women's college gymnastics meet between the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and Florida at Lloyd Noble in Norman, Okla., Friday, March 3, 2023.ouwgym -- print1 /
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The first of two Sooner defending national championship teams gets a chance to do it all over again when the women’s Oklahoma gymnastics squad competes in the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championship final on Saturday in Ft. Worth, Texas.

While the OU softball team continues on its road to a possible national title three-peat, the Sooner women gymnasts moved a step closer to claiming back-to-back national crowns by finishing second in one of the two NCAA semifinals on Thursday. The Sooners came in second to No. 5-seeded Utah in one of two semifinal sessions despite scoring an Oklahoma-best 198.1625 in an NCAA semifinal and the fifth-best score in an NCAA Championship semifinal or final.

Utah scored 198.2250, coming from behind in the Utes final rotation on beam to win the night session. Utah’s 49.6875 score on the beam apparatus was the highest score by any of the four competing teams in the night semifinal in any of the events. No. 4 seed UCLA, which led the night semifinal after two rotations, finished third and No. 9 Kentucky was fourth.

Oklahoma will be joined in the NCAA Championship final, also known as “Four on the Floor” by No. 6 LSU and No. 2 Florida. LSU narrowly edged Florida in the day semifinal on Thursday (197.4750 to 197.4000). The other two teams competing in the first semifinal were No. 7 California and No. 13 Denver, which finished third and fourth, respectively.

The Sooners are making their 10th consecutive appearance in the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championship finals. OU is the only team that has participated in every championship final since 2013.

Oklahoma has dual-competition victories over each of the other three teams that will be vying for the 2023 NCAA Championship on Saturday. Two of the Sooner wins were in Norman (Florida and Utah). OU defeated LSU earlier back in January in Baton Rouge. Louisiana.

As far as the team events, the Sooners finished first on vault, second on beam, and third on bars and floor. Leading the way in OU’s team victory on vault was super senior Olivia Trautman’s 9.950 score to win the NCAA individual title in the event. She became the seventh Oklahoma Sooner to win an individual national crown and the first since Anastasia Webb won both the all-around, floor and beam titles in 2021.

Maile O’Keefe of Utah was the all-around champion. Audrey Davis and Jordan Bowers of Oklahoma finished tied for fifth and in seventh, respectively, in the all-around competition.

The “Four on the Floor” championship final will be televised from Dickies Arena in Ft. Worth by ABC on Saturday starting at 3 p.m. CT.

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