NCAA Super Six Finals: Florida and Oklahoma Are Co-Champions While Alabama Lands in Fourth

The NCAA National Gymnastics Championships have been full of surprises.

It started last night. It was the second session of the semi-finals. In a twist of fate, Nebraska edged out UCLA and Utah for the Super Six finals.
 Florida and Alabama tied for first place, even after Florida had a fall on beam from Bridget Sloan and Diandra Millner of Alabama sat down her vault. Katherine Grable of Arkansas was favored to win the all-around title, but Alabama home scoring allowed Kim Jacobs to take the spot with a 39.625.

Tonight was the Super Six finals. Everyone wanted to win, but only one could...in theory. First rotation, Florida on Vault, LSU and Oklahoma on bars. Clean routines for Oklahoma on bars and beautiful as always. Florida was determined to clinch the title again and to not have any falls. Florida kept a good pace all night, with clean routines, but not always perfect landings. Oklahoma really shined with their beautiful artistry on beam and floor. Chayse Capps and Madison Mooring had beautiful routines with some beautiful skills.

On floor, Maile Kanewa stole the show for the Sooners with beautiful, difficult skills, including a piked full in.

Alabama had it good until the last rotation, beam. Diandra Millner started off her beam routine with a wobble but then fell on her acro series. It got worse when all-around champ, Kim Jacobs fell also, making the Crimson Tide count a fall.

The LSU Tigers pulled a good fight with strong performances on all four events. Liomencia Hall garnered cheers from the Alabama crowd even that were louder than the ones for the home team. Rheagan Courville secured beautiful performances on beam and floor but on vault, she landed with her chest a little low on her Yurchenko full, even with nice height and distance. The Tigers came in Third place with a 197.100. 

The last rotation had Florida on floor and Oklahoma on vault. It came down to Haley Scaman and Bridgette Caquatto. Haley Scaman did a perfect vault and scored a 9.95. For the Gators to cinch a second win, Bridgette needed a 9.975 to beat Oklahoma's 198.175. While Bridgette had a strong routine with clean tumbling, it was enough to win, but not enough to beat the Sooners. It scored a 9.95, tying Florida and Oklahoma, giving Oklahoma their first national title and Florida their second.

So while Alabama was kicking themselves for selling National champions t-shirts on their website pre-maturely, Oklahoma broke through and became the sixth team to win a national title and had the first tie in NCAA women's gymnastics history.

Image via Jordynsleftbrow... who posted this image on Twitter to be mocked for all eternity.

Update. I stand corrected. The T-shirt is for the SEC Championships. Thank you Rick at GymnasticsCoaching.com.