Apr. 15—The first four Oklahoma gymnasts to compete on vault each struggled to stick their dismount.

It was the first rotation of the NCAA Championship Finals and the Sooners were still managing to post solid scores. Allie Stern and Jordan Bowers each scored 9.900 despite taking a small steps on their landings.

The fifth gymnast to go, freshman Faith Torrez, hadn’t competed on the event in the last four meets. Still, Torrez didn’t look affected by the moment.

Torrez executed a powerful vault and stuck the landing to post a career-high 9.925. Vault national champion Olivia Trautmam anchored with a team-high 9.9500, and the Sooners took a narrow lead heading into the second rotation.

Oklahoma was only getting started, eventually extending its lead heading into the final rotation where they posted their highest score of the night on the floor exercise (49.6750).

The Sooners led wire-towire to secure their second straight national championship on Saturday in Fort Worth, Tex.

“There’s never that expectation that it’s going to happen again, but it’s pretty darn cool that it happened again,” OU head coach K.J. Kindler said about repeating as national champions. “I’m pretty proud.”

Oklahomas finished with a team score of 198.3875 to hold off second-placed Utah (198.2365).

It all came down to an exciting finish on the final rotation, but it wasn’t the first excitement the team experienced that day.

According to Kindler, at around 5:30 Saturday morning, OU volunteer coach Ashley Kerr went into labor and had her child around four hours later.

“That was the first excitement of the day and everyone’s fine,” Kindler said. “I’m sure she was watching on tv, mortified that she wasn’t here, while holding an infant. I can’t imagine the scene at the hospital. Shoutout to Ash Kerr we miss you.”

The Utes finished the night on balance beam, and put pressure on the Sooners down the stretch with the highest beam score of the day (49.7375). Utah has a perfect 10 from Maile O’Keefe and a 9.9625 from Abby Paulson, who finished first and second in the event.

The Sooners needed to finish strong on floor in order to hold on to the top spot. All six OU gymnasts posted scores over 9.900 including two 9.9500’s from Jordan Bowers and Danielle Sievers.

Audrey Davis led the Sooners off with a score of 9.900 and Danae Fletcher closed with a clutch 9.9375 to secure the title.

Bowers and Sievers finished tied for the top score on floor and Fletcher finished tied for third.

Still, it was a big change that Kindler made to the vault lineup, that made a huge difference on Saturday.

“As coaches we’re always trying to do what our gut tells us, because different people are hot on different days,” she said. “And today we just felt like Faith was in a zone on vault.”

Coming off a strong ending to the first rotation of the day, the Sooners continued to ride that momentum into the uneven bars. Sievers led off the event with a stuck dismount for a 9.925 and Olivia Trautman tied her career high and led the team with a 9.950.

Jordan Bowers competed in the all around and finished second to LSU’s Haleigh Bryant with a 39.6875. Bowers finished in the top-seven on every event.

“This feeling is (unlike) any other,” Audrey Davis said. “We had so much fun and we just wanted to leave it all on the floor and that’s what we did.”

It’s the Sooners’ 13th national championship and sixth in the last nine seasons.

Welcome back party The OU women’s gymnastics team will be arriving at the Sam Viersen Gymnastics Center, directly north of the Lloyd Noble Center, on Saturday at 10 p.m.

Fans are encouraged to attend and welcome the team back from Fort Worth.