Oklahoma successfully defended its NCAA women's gymnastics title Saturday for the team's sixth championship in nine years. The Sooners led after every rotation. Oklahoma's Olivia Trautman, a fifth-year senior and a graduate of Champlin Park High School, had the third-best score on vault (9.950) in the team finals in Fort Worth, Texas, and tied for third on bars (9.950).
Trautman was told before the season she should retire for medical reasons but competed anyway. And on Thursday she won the individual title in vault and played a big role in the Sooners team title two days later.
"It's amazing," Trautman said, according to The Oklahoman. "This is just like icing on the top. I came back for a reason and this is what we wanted to do the whole entire year and we just did it together."
Utah's Abby Paulson, a senior from Anoka, was second on beam (9.9625) in the team finals. Teammate Grace McCallum, a sophomore from Isanti, Minn., tied for fifth on bars (9.375) and placed 15th on beam (9.8875). The Red Rocks finished third (197.9375) as a team behind Oklahoma (198.3875) and Florida (198.2375).
Gophers softball splits
Autumn Pease gave up four hits and struck out six in six innings as the Gophers softball team beat host Michigan State 5-0 for its fourth win in a row in the first game of a doubleheader. Bri Enter pitched the seventh.
Sydney Strelow had an RBI double and Natalie DenHartog an RBI single in the first inning to give Minnesota a 2-0 lead. Taylor Krapf had a two-run single in the fifth. The loss was the seventh straight for the Spartans.
Michigan State won the second game 3-2. Anna Fox's hit — the fifth for the Spartans (12-24, 2-11 Big Ten) — drove in the deciding run in the bottom of the seventh. The Gophers (25-16, 6-6) scored twice in the first on Kayla Chavez's homer and a wild pitch.
U women golfers tied for fifth
The Gophers women's golf team was tied for fifth place with a 1-over 577 after the two rounds of the Lady Buckeye Invitational in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State led with an 18-under 558.
