#4 Oklahoma Preview

Every refrain about the Oklahoma Sooners after last season began with "If they had been healthy," and so it was for previews of this season. If they stay healthy, they're easily a Super Six team and probably the most likely to challenge the top three. Well, that's all gone out the window already. Kayla Nowak is done for the season, and with her go at least three solid 9.850-9.875 routines.

There is a perception that the Sooners are a bit like a hydra. Cut off a 9.850, and the team will be fine because three more will grow from nothing in its place. Ergo, Kayla Nowak's scores are replaceable. Like many perceptions, this one is about 75% true. This coaching staff does have the commendable capability to create depth, not just routines but real depth, where it seemed none existed. Expect the team to go on as if no one missed a beat. At the same time, the losses to injury and graduation are starting to pile up without heirs making themselves apparent. A team does not need stars to be successful, but it does need more than lineups full of commendable replacements. It needs 9.9s. Oklahoma is returning just three RQSs of 9.875 or better, fewer than Utah, Stanford, Nebraska, LSU, Georgia, and Oregon State. The Sooners are a better team than that statistic indicates, but there is work to be done to show it.

A significant factor in building up those high-scoring routines will be the freshman class. Powerful Level 10 standouts Keeley Kmieciak and Haley Scaman lead the group, and both will be expected to contribute on at least vault and floor from the start. These two are capable of bringing that RQS total from three to seven on their own. As for the other freshmen, we have seen little from Maile'ana Kanewa recently and nothing at all from Hunter Price, so expect less of them. The return of Lauren Alexander will be more influential.

Vault:


If Oklahoma is to match the successes of 2010 and 2011, it will be earned largely through improvement on vault. While that makeshift postseason lineup didn't do the team any favors, vault was the weakest event throughout 2012, often languishing in the 49.2s while bars and beam were in the 49.4s. On vault, anything less than a 49.350 becomes a disability when the best teams are in the 49.5s and 49.6s.

The Sooners will miss Sara Stone's 9.9s, certainly, but the additions of Scaman and Kmieciak will more than make up for it, bringing both a quality and a level of difficulty that the team couldn't always boast in the past. Both freshmen competed strong 1.5s in JO, and Scaman's has been excellent in the preseason. Kmieciak has been training just a full instead of the 1.5, at least for now, but it will be worthy of the late lineup nonetheless. Expect the 4th, 5th, and 6th vaults to be Kmieciak, Olson, and Scaman, all capable of 9.9s.  

Taylor Spears and Madison Mooring will be good for 9.850s in the opening half of the lineup, and the Sooners will be pleased that they can now treat 9.850s as establishing scores for the big guns (as they should be) rather than desirable routines for the 5th position. There will be some degree of choice for the final vaulter, with Clark the most likely and Brewer another option.

The Peszek and Nowak Effects

Far too fresh on the heels of Kayla Nowak's harrowing, season-ending back injury comes the news that Sam Peszek has torn her Achilles tendon and will miss the 2013 season. We always start the preseason with such optimism for the season ahead, and then it gets chipped away with injuries like these.

Unfortunately for the Sooners, they are now accustomed to getting by without Kayla Nowak, having lost her to injury at the end of last season as well. Nowak is capable of being a solid AAer who goes over 9.800 on each event, but she will be particularly missed on bars and floor, where she would be a guarantee for the late lineup. On floor, Oklahoma has been fighting to prove that it is more than just a 9.850 team, and Nowak was a major part of that argument because her routine could regularly warrant a higher score. I have no doubt that Oklahoma can find the routines necessary, but the trend of injuries over the last couple of seasons has slowed the Sooners' progress toward extracting themselves from that second tier of teams.

Speaking of a trend of injuries, UCLA. Sam Peszek makes the fourth member of this team to tear her Achilles in the last couple of seasons, following Zamarripa, Wong, and McDonald. Like Oklahoma, UCLA will not completely fall apart because of this loss, but it will be significant not just because Peszek is a high-scoring AAer but because she brings a solidity that none of the other stars of this team can manage at the moment. While the team will potentially lose .050-.075 in scoring potential on each event without Peszek, it is beam where the loss will be the most painful. Zamarripa and Larson at the end of this lineup don't exactly inspire the confidence of 6 for 6 every week, and they are the strongest workers. Overall, expect to see a lot more of Syd Sawa than we otherwise would have.