FORT WORTH, Texas -- On the first rotation of Saturday's national championship meet, Maggie Nichols perfectly stuck her dismount on uneven bars, and she immediately turned to her Oklahoma teammates with the unbridled joy of an underdog and clapped her hands defiantly one time as if addressing her doubters.
But in reality, Oklahoma was never an underdog, and the ability of Nichols -- having won the individual all-around title on Friday despite not competing on all four events since January due to a heel injury -- to stick a routine was never exactly in doubt.
Nichols scored a 9.9375 on the event, and the Sooners took the early lead and never looked back.
Although Oklahoma, which came to Texas riding an undefeated season and the top ranking, was considered the favorite by virtually everyone, the women on the team refused to give in to the hype, and instead relied on their emotions from narrowly missing out on the title in 2018 to UCLA to keep them focused.
"It hurt coming up a little bit short last year, especially when we had the potential to win," Nichols said, with confetti still in her hair after the championship ceremony.
"But I know for our whole team it really motivated us to go into the gym, even during the summer and in preseason. Everybody used our hashtag, PZTSF [point zero three seven five], how much we lost by. We had that on our tank tops, our bracelets, we said it all the time.
"We were motivated to go into the gym, not just to set us ourselves apart, but to be so much better with little details -- stuck landings, hitting handstands, pointed toes, every little detail so we could win by a big margin this year."
Sure enough, the little details did set the Sooners apart. The team scored an astounding 198.3375 and held off second-place LSU by .5125 points -- significantly more than last season's PZTSF margin. UCLA finished in third (197.5375) and Denver in fourth (197.000). There were a few mistakes on the night for Oklahoma, most notably a fall from Evy Schoepfer on floor, but overall it was a championship-worthy performance that earned the Sooners their third title in four years.
There were other compelling storylines leading into the season's final weekend -- the impending retirement of legendary UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Field, Denver's Cinderella run, LSU looking to buck the "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride" distinction with a first title after years of coming this close -- but in the end, the result was what many expected all along.
With Oklahoma holding the lead after every rotation, Sooners fans could feel a win was imminent heading into vault, the team's final event of the evening. Despite the best efforts of the UCLA and LSU supporters, amid a record-setting 8,595 in attendance at the Fort Worth Convention Center, cheers of "O-U" drowned out everyone else. The team, knowing full well how far ahead it was in the standings, jumped up and down in excitement when each vaulter hit.
One by one, they landed vault after vault, and they came back to their screaming teammates, each time more emboldened than the last. After senior Brenna Dowell, the anchor on the apparatus, stuck her landing, she embraced vault coach Lou Ball and ran back to the rest of the team and spelled out "O-U" with her arms before pointing to the sky. She earned a 9.9875 -- the best score by anyone of the entire weekend -- and later laughed as she confessed it was the first vault she had nailed all season.
"And to do it the very last night on the night of final four and to really clinch that victory," she added. "It was so exciting and awesome."
The most difficult part of the Sooners' night seemed to be the several minutes they had to wait for the other three teams to wrap up. Knowing the trophy was coming back to Norman, they hugged and cried, while UCLA's Kyla Ross and LSU's McKenna Kelley completed their routines.
It might have appeared like business as usual for the Sooners and their winning ways, but coach K.J. Kindler said it was anything but, as she bucked protocol and invited every single member of her team on stage with her at the post-meet news conference.
"It has been quite a journey this year, and there's not one person that was not working their butt off, contributing, stepping in when we needed them to step in," Kindler said. "We were faced with adversity from beginning to end. I know it might have looked easy from the outside -- we were undefeated, we were ranked No. 1 -- but we were battling the entire time. Every week was a gigantic challenge; we're just very good at hiding it. But we had our down moments."
She went on to reveal that Dave Richardson, the husband of team trainer Jenn Richardson, had died in early March due to colon cancer. Knowing how many injuries the team was dealing with, Richardson returned to work and was with the team in Fort Worth. She was seen crying and hugging the gymnasts and coaching staff, and holding her young daughter after the win. According to Kindler, she became the Sooners' emotional cornerstone, and everyone seemed to indicate the win was very much for Richardson and for Dave, who spent so much of his time in the gym.
The Sooners had "DR" on their warm-up leotards and sported temporary tattoos of dark blue ribbons on their necks to acknowledge Dave. Most of them seemed to be holding back tears as they talked about him after the meet.
"We did it for Dave," Dowell said, as she acknowledged pointing to the sky after her vault. "We did it for him. To honor his memory in this way was just so special."
The devastating loss of one of their own and the stinging memory of 2018 brought the Sooners together, gave them all the fuel they needed and made their victory all the more sweet. In the end, nothing, not even the countless injuries that plagued them throughout the year, could stop them.