Oklahoma gymnasts cheer for Denver's Madison Ulrich at NCAA Championships
FORT WORTH, Texas — Madison Ulrich wasn’t alone in the NCAA women’s gymnastics championship semifinals last Thursday.
Ulrich and two of her Denver teammates had qualified as individuals for the semifinals, but their Pioneers’ squad had narrowly missed qualifying as a team.
Individual championships are decided in the semifinals.
But while Denver’s Rosie Casali (vault) and Rylie Mundell (bars) were paired together with Missouri, Ulrich was set to go through the competition in the same rotation as OU.
The Sooners, who eventually won the program’s seventh national championship, embraced it.
While Ulrich didn’t compete until after they had finished their rotation, and it would’ve been easy to begin to prepare for their next event, OU’s gymnasts stayed engaged as Ulrich competed.
The Sooners cheered for Ulrich just as they had their teammates during the rotation.
Ulrich and OU were plenty familiar with each other, as the Sooners and Pioneers were conference rivals in the Big 12 until OU’s move to the SEC over the summer.
The Sooners beat Ulrich’s Denver team twice last season, with Ulrich competing in the all-around each time.
Ulrich finished with a 39.325, including a 9.8875 on both the uneven bars and balance beam.