The reigning national champion Oklahoma women's gymnastics squad opened the 2026 season right where it left off last season, rising above some of the best in the sport.
The Sooners and defending SEC champion LSU battled to a rare first-place tie in the Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad in West Valley City, Utah, on Saturday. The competition featured UCLA and Utah in addition to the two teams from the SEC.
OU women gymnasts win out over four of country's top teams in season-opening Sprouts Collegiate Quad
Oklahoma and LSU finished with identical scores of 197.500, but the Sooners were awarded first place on the basis of a tiebreaker formula that added the sixth non-counting score for both teams on all four events to the total team score. That resulted in OU finishing over a full point better than LSU, 236.700 to 235.575.
UCLA, which was runner-up to Oklahoma in the 2025 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships, finished third in the Sprouts Collegiate Quad meet with a score of 197.000 and Utah, the fourth-place finisher in last season's national championship, was fourth with a total team score of 195.900.
Oklahoma trailed UCLA after scoring 49.350 on vault in its opening rotation, but took over the top spot at the halfway point with a team score of 49.425 on the uneven bars, led by a high score of 9.925 by freshman Ella Murphy in her first collegiate event and a pair of 9.900s by junior Hannah Schieble and senior Faith Torrez.
The Sooners remained in the lead after the third rotation, finishing with the best team score on beam (49.500), with Schieble and Torrez again leading the way with matching individual scores of 9.950.
Oklahoma finished on the floor, scoring 49.175 to complete the competition in an overall tie with LSU.
The all-around champion was Kailin Chao of UCLA with an overall total of 39.600. Freshman Mackenzie Estep paced the Sooners with scores of 9.900 or better in three events (vault, bars and floor).
The second competition of the season for the Oklahoma women gymnasts will be an NCAA Championships finals rematch with Missouri on Friday in Columbia. The Tigers finished third in last season's NCAA Championships.