NCAA National Championships: Team Finals

NCAA National Championships
Team Finals

This past weekend the Fort Worth Convention Center in Texas hosted the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics National Championships!

The top 8 teams from NCAA Regionals advanced to these championships. The teams competing were Oklahoma, UCLA, Georgia, LSU, Denver, Michigan, Utah and Oregon.

Semi-Finals Results
From the two semi-finals held on Friday, April 19^th the top 2 teams from each advanced to the all-around team competition.

From semi-final one, which included UCLA, LSU, Utah and Michigan the advancing teams were UCLA and LSU!

From semi-final two, which included Oklahoma, Denver, Georgia and Oregon State the advancing teams were Oklahoma and Denver!

Finals: Four on the Floor
On Saturday, April 20^th, in the “Four on the Floor” finals; LSU, UCLA, Oklahoma and Denver went head-to-head to try and bring home the win for their respective teams.

Denver made program history with their 4th place team finish, scoring a 197.0! This was the highest Denver has ever advanced as a team in program history! Some of their wonderful performances included a fantastic floor routine from Lynzee Brown who started her routine off with a double layout and a score of 9.9375. On vault, Maddie Karr did a beautiful yurchenko 1 ½ that had great height and scored a 9.9125. On bars, Denver counted five scores of 9.8 and higher and then finished their night off on the balance beam with a stellar performance from anchor Kaitlyn Schou who scored a 9.9375 to finish off the competition for Denver. It was an exciting night for this team and it will be fun to see all they accomplish in the years to come!

UCLA started their night on balance beam where Kyla Ross scored a 9.925 with a beautiful routine. On their second event, floor, Katelyn Ohashi finished her college career with a fantastic routine. Ohashi performed a switch leg double layout to score a 9.95 and a huge hug from head coach Valorie Kondos-Field! Miss Val took her final bow as head coach on Saturday night after 29 years with the UCLA Bruins. UCLA was solid on their final two events, vault and bars, to finish 3^rd as a team with a 197.5375.

LSU started off on the vault, led off by senior Sarah Finnegan who scored a huge 9.9125 with a stuck yurchenko full. Finnegan led the team all night long, scoring a 9.95 on bars, 9.95 on beam and 9.95 on floor. Other memorable performances came from seniors McKenna Kelley who scored a 9.95 on floor and from senior Lexie Priessman who scored a 9.9 on floor. Overall, a very solid night for LSU and their four graduating seniors. LSU capped off their night with a 2^nd place team finish and a score of 197.825!

After an exciting night of amazing gymnastics, the Oklahoma Sooners WON their 4^th NCAA team title in six years with a giant 198.3375 team score!

The Sooners were solid on their first event, the uneven bars, with six huge routines in a row, anchored by Maggie Nichols’ score of 9.9375. The Sooners were unstoppable on beam and recovered on their third event, floor, after having to drop a 9.1125 from Evy Schoepfer who unfortunately fell on her double tuck. The team rallied together and pulled out four scores of 9.9 and higher on floor and went into their last event, vault, leading LSU by .4125. The Sooners dominated vault and senior Brenna Dowell finished her collegiate career with a beautiful yurchenko 1 ½ STUCK and a score of 9.9875 to secure the win for the Sooners!

Congratulations to ALL of the athletes and team who competed this season. Your determination, beautiful gymnastics, and amazing sportsmanship did not go unnoticed. We’re looking forwards to the next NCAA gymnastics season and watching you all inspire the future generations to keep working hard and follow their dreams!