OKLAHOMA
Who Is She?
Whew boy. Deep breaths. Oklahoma has opted to deal with the departure of Maggie Nichols by recruiting every person KJ has ever met as part of a freshman class of nine (it actually was 10, but Cassidy Knight no longer appears). So let’s get into it.
The name-brand in the group is former WOGA elite Audrey Davis, who placed 6th all-around at junior nationals in 2017, four tenths behind Leanne Wong, then 14th all-around at senior nationals in 2018. Davis returned to JO for a moment in 2020 to compete bars and beam, winning beam at every meet she entered.
After Davis, we get to the cavalcade of ninja L10s. Two weeks ago, Oklahoma announced that Danae Fletcher, an MG Elite refugee, would be granted asylum to join the team a year early. Because there just weren’t enough people in this class already. Most recently, Fletcher placed 4th AA in her junior division at JO Nationals in 2019, winning the floor title. Speaking of floor, Katherine LeVasseur enjoyed her best result at March’s Nastia Cup on that event, placing third, but typically her strongest scores come on vault, where she scored a 10.000 at 2019 Region 3s.
Winning vault is a bit of a theme in this year’s class. Julianne Fehring won the event in her division at 2019 JO Nationals with a Yurchenko 1.5, following in the footsteps of Quinn Smith, who did the exact same at 2018 JO Nationals with her own Yurchenko 1.5.
Lest it seem to be all vault, I’d rate bars as Bell Johnson‘s best event, having earned her highest placement there at each of the last three JO Nationals.
Augmenting the class further are two walk-ons who were not part of the signing class—Sheridan Ramsey and Audrey Lynn. Ramsey scored a 9.750 on vault at 2019 Region 3s for her best score ever, while Lynn is a newer L10, just starting that level in the 2019 season, who recorded her top career score of 9.650 on vault in 2020 just before the shutdown.
Oklahoma’s freshman class also includes Meilin Sullivan—who placed 5th on bars at 2019 JO Nationals and profiles as a very believable bars, beam, and floor contender—but per her mom on the socials, she’ll be out for the season with COVID-induced myocarditis/pericarditis.
Still, um, it’s a lot of people with a lot of gymnastics.
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