Sooners Rally over Oregon State, Denver, Centenary
The Oklahoma Sooners had three falls (two counting) on the uneven bars tonight, and found themselves sitting in third place after two rotations, but mounted a spectacular comeback to win the quad meet over #6 Oregon State, #23 Denver, and Centenary in Norman tonight.
Led by Natasha Kelley, Megan Ferguson, Kayla Nowak, and freshman Taylor Spears, the usually solid Sooners showed some rare mistakes, but also some fight, coming back from about six tenths back to win by nearly seven tenths! Way to go Sooners putting up a great beam rotation after such a shaky bars rotation!
The Sooners have been hitting pretty well aside from tonights meet, but they seem to be off to a slow start in terms of getting the BIG scores. For example, tonight was the third meet of the season, and they just got their first 9.9 (on vault, from veteran Natasha Kelley. They also got 9.9 #2, on FX from Nowak tonight). Last year, it seemed to me that they were getting 9.9 pretty consistently (Flanery, Vise, especially), so hopefully the Sooners will turn it up even more and tweak their routines to eliminate any of those silly .1 deductions that plague routines across the NCAA!
OK, enough with the Sooner lovefest! You guys should just come to expect that from me, I am a Sooner graduate so…ya know, it was bound to happen sooner or later (HAH, get it….I crack myself up!). Other quick miscellaneous NCAA thoughts: Florida is doing WORK right now! Ashanee Dickerson is my pick for 2011 NCAA AA champ…I’m calling it now! Biggest (good) surprise: Utah! I thought they were looking a little weak this year but they are doing ok so far! Biggest (uh oh) surprise so far: UCLA! So many poorly timed injuries and fluke mistakes have turned the 2010 Champs into a team that looks uncertain and underprepared. C’mon Bruins, you can do it! I look forward to seeing more from Georgia, and from HOT Stanford!
From the SoonerSports press release:
“They showed huge heart, huge fight,” OU head coach K.J. Kindler said. “We’ve seen lots of teams all across the country, in all sports, get down and stay down. They didn’t do that, they felt like they could still win. That was huge, especially for such a young team, that’s huge.”
“They fought for it tonight, they fought for that win,” Kindler said of her 99th victory at OU. “It’s probably worth more than the other wins we’ve had this season.”
