(Photo: Susan Wong/WCSN)
The No. 14 Gym Devils are home for the first time in 2020 to host the reigning national champion, No. 1 Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday.
Both teams are coming off a road meet as both schools competed in the Collegiate Challenge in Anaheim, Calif. last week. OU earned the victory in the second session quad meet over UCLA, Cal and Stanford while ASU placed second in the first session meet. The Gym Devils beat out two ranked opponents in No. 13 Auburn and No. 25 Penn State.
The Gym Devils posted a 194.675 in a meet where seven gymnasts made their collegiate debuts and competed 18 of ASU’s 24 total routines.
“We are young, but there is a lot of talent,” head coach Jay Santos said. “If we can get them to start settling in and really doing what they are capable of on a week-in and week-out basis and get a couple of these returners to come back and fill in a couple spots, I think that’ll help quite a bit as well.”
ASU was without its All-American in junior Cairo Leonard-Baker as she had to sit out the meet for precautionary measures relating to an injury. Two other upperclassmen stepped up in her place though as graduate student Morgan Wilson posted two scores of 9.800 on vault and beam while senior Jess Ginn earned a team-best 9.850 on floor.
Vault, an event that ASU has struggled with in recent years, was the Gym Devils strong point last week where they scored a 48.900, their best event total of the meet and good enough for 8th in the nation. Freshman Hannah Scharf highlighted the event with a team-best 9.850.
ASU will take on the Sooners for the third season in a row, each time when OU is ranked No. 1. The Sooners are coming off the nation’s best score last week with a 197.350. They also hold the best bars score with a 49.550 total and are hold the second place score nationally on every other apparatus.
The Sooners are led by two-time all-around national champion Maggie Nichols. Nichols posted the second best all-around score in the nation last meet with a 39.625 highlighted by a 9.975 on bars and a 9.925 on floor.
“Obviously Oklahoma has really good gymnastics, but the cool thing about gymnastics is regardless on how they perform, it doesn’t affect how we perform,” Wilson said. “I think our focus this week has been ‘how are we going to beat ourselves and how are we going to build on what we did last weekend’.”
The top 15 matchup will take place in Desert Financial Arena on Saturday, Jan. 11 at 4:30, and the meet will also be televised nationally on ESPN2.
