By Charlie Gaasch
The Oklahoma women’s gymnastics team is rolling right down into Fort Worth to cap off a perfect season with a seventh national title. The number one ranked program will have their work cut out for them as they compete with seven other teams in the Lone Star State. Following stellar seasons all around, Alabama, LSU, California, Utah, Arkansas, Florida, and Stanford will meet the Sooners for the national championship meet which starts on April 18th. The 18th will feature the semifinals amongst the eight teams and four will reach the finish line on Saturday April 20th.
The final eight teams feature four SEC programs that OU, while already familiar with, will join next year. Out of the seven opponents, the Sooners have competed this season against six, only missing Florida. Each of the seven have already fallen mightily against Oklahoma and there is little reason to believe that the upcoming meet will be any different. OU is 35-0 this year and has not shown a single sign of weakness for the past three years straight. Both California and Alabama are two of three teams to come within just a point of the Sooners in a meet this year and even then, it really wasn’t close.
The team will rely on stars Jordan Bowers and Ragan Smith to lead the way as they have done all year long and both have gotten hot at the perfect time. Smith has been perfect on beam six times this year and Bowers is coming off a truly remarkable Big 12 championship performance. There, she scored three perfect tens out of four events and ended the night 0.075 points shy of absolute perfection. The country simply hasn’t seen a team put together in the way that the 2024 OU team is.
The Big 12 title featured not only perfection from Bowers but tens from Smith and Faith Torrez as well. The night capped off with a total team score of 198.950 meaning they were a total of 1.050 points shy of being holistically perfect on the night. That score was the NCAA record smashing point total, a feat which is becoming easy to repeat when watching this team. Records have been demolished nearly every night that OU has hit the mats and if fans thought the last two years were good, this one is astounding.
Though Alabama shows to be a strong contender, potentially the strongest of the remaining eight, they still have not been able to catch up to Oklahoma. The two teams met at the LNC on senior night on March 17th, marking the closest match of the season. The final score between the two was 198.775 to 198.025. Though 0.750 seems like a narrow enough margin on paper, the meet still showed that there is still a wide gap between the Sooners and the rest of the country. To make up for three quarters of a point, it would not only require the Crimson Tide to have a personal best all-around night, but also an extremely disappointing and uncharacteristic night for the Sooners. This is seen in the most recent match between the two programs where OU won in the Ann Arbor regional finals by a score of 198.400 to 197.575. This was an average performance for Alabama and an underwhelming night for Oklahoma. Simply put, there is barely a chance that even the best of the rest can catch OU.
The two regional final meets in Ann Arbor, Michigan put OU up against multiple unfamiliar but solid opponents. They demolished the likes of NC State and Illinois who arrived in the Great Lakes State with little hope for victory. Penn State and Ohio State contended with one another and were knocking on Alabama’s door, but no one was home. The Tide was out looking for the Sooners but ultimately, Oklahoma had the keys to the house and left everyone locked out. The two meets were easy wins and though the Buckeyes and Tide came hopeful, they were left high and dry.
