Of course it was these two. Of course it came down to the team event.

Oregon and Baylor stared each other down all season. They were both near-perfect. But, in the final event, one fell.

It wasn’t the Bears, who won their 10th-straight national title on Saturday in South Dakota.

“We didn’t do as well as we wanted to in team event as we wanted to,” Baylor head coach Felecia Mulkey said. “We did enough, and that’s what it’s all about.”

The No. 1 Baylor Bears (12-0) capped their perfect season with a third victory in 2025 over No. 2 Oregon (7-3), 276.015-266.355 in the championship meet. The nation’s two best programs still came down to the wire after the first five events went Baylor’s way, but the Ducks posted a season-worst score in the team event to drop to the now 10-time reigning national champion Bears.

“We talked about just leaving it all out there,” Oregon senior tumbler Rachel Furlong said. “It was our last meet with this particular team — we just wanted to have fun today, and we had everyone here encouraging us. So, even though we didn’t have the outcome that we wanted, we all had the most fun. This has been the best team to be a part of this year.”

The two programs that have defined a sport locked eyes in a first-half staring contest where neither truly blinked. 

Oregon put up its worst compulsory acro score of the tournament — 8.775 — in the same heat where it struggled last time out against the Bears. 

“I don’t know if it’s better or worse to make a mistake at the beginning or the end, per se,” Susnara said. “I joke that comp acro is the worst heat of the meet, because everyone’s nervous. They were able to shake that off and execute throughout the rest of the meet.”

There wasn’t much else to pick apart in an event where all four pyramid and toss heats scored 9.675 or higher; standing tumbling, especially with five judges (in regular-season meets, the number is three) watching.

There’s a lot that sets champions apart. These two bring flair that nearly no other school does.

The acro event began with Oregon freshman duo Cassidy Cu and Angelica Martin’s reverse planche, slide-to-split five-element skill that they debuted earlier this season — unseen in NCATA competition before 2025.

“I can’t imagine being a freshman and being in the position they’re in,” Furlong said. “Not only are they on the team competing, they’re in huge roles. Angelica and Cassidy have an entire acro heat to themselves, and they’ve hit every single time.”

The flair swung all the way through to Bears standouts Leavy McDonald and Jordan Gruendler’s similar seven-element heat that adds an on-the-mat turn to the end of Cu and Martin’s skill. The two scored a perfect-10 in the heat against the Ducks earlier this season, on April 5 in Waco, TX.

For the Bears, who had already posted two perfect-10.0 scores in acro heats on the week before Saturday, the bar was ceiling-high. 

They didn’t touch perfection in the heat in the title meet, but did post a trio of strong scores that included a 9.950 in the five-element heat and 9.925 in seven-element. Oregon shot back with two 9.8-plus scores in those events, but continued to trail.

The search for perfection hit a high in the pyramid event.

Last time the two met, the Bears posted a perfect event — three 10.0 scores — to put the Ducks in a halftime hole. With the trophy watching, it wasn’t perfection they found, but it wasn’t far away, either.

The Bears posted two 9.875 scores, in the synchronized and open pyramid heats, to outduel the Ducks’ 9.850 in the open heat.

“It’s really competitive,” Oregon sophomore base Bella Swarthout said. “A lot of teams can put out really awesome pyramids, and there’s teams scoring 10s all year round.”

Oregon posted a trio of 9.675–plus scores, including their event-high in the open pyramid that it’ll compete for an event championship on Sunday. Senior top Bethany Glick, one of the program’s standout performers, had to give her inversion skill a second push after she couldn’t do it the first time, but completed the heat with few further issues.

It took until the end of the fourth event for Oregon to win its first heat of the day — in the open toss, where the Ducks finally outscored the Bears 9.625 to 9.600. The deficit was still there, but the streak of 12 Baylor heat wins no longer was.

Oregon’s team event wasn’t perfect — missed skills included a fall from tumbler Shea Barnes and a struggle in the synchronized acro portion that involved top Selah Bell. Baylor wasn’t perfect, either; an incomplete tumbling skill held the Bears back.

“I’m sad, and a little disappointed with how our team event went today,” Susnara said. “I think that if we hit our normal and executed the way we know we can, I think we would’ve had a good shot at it.”

The Ducks, who scored 91.030 and 90.530 in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds, slumped to a season-worst 86.630 in the event. The door was wide open, and despite just a 94.190-point team event (the Bears’ worst of the postseason) that followed, Baylor stepped through into history.

“That was not an easy championship to win — by any means,” Mulkey said. “Our start values were the same. We had to go out and hit what we were going to hit. There was no fear, and no doubt on our side. It was the mindset today.”

But, as they’ve been for the last decade, Baylor was inevitable. They were ultimate competitors. They were — and still are — national champions.

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