FAYETTEVILLE - With fourth-ranked Oklahoma in town on Sunday, the Arkansas gymnastics team got a chance to see how they matched up with a national championship contender.
The answer was the Razorbacks have some work to do as Oklahoma earned a 197.050-195.900 victory. A victory of more than a point is a wide margin when events are sometimes decided by less than 0.1 of a point.
No. 16 Arkansas lost its SEC and home opener to No. 15 Georgia by only 0.075 on Friday.
"I was disappointed because I felt like we took a bit of a step backwards from where we were the other night," Arkansas Coach Mark Cook said. "We made a few mental errors that cost us automatic deductions and then had a few subpar routines. A little here and there and it adds up pretty quick."
Arkansas had posted a 196.700 in Friday's match so the Razorbacks were off that pace.
A highlight for Arkansas was the individual performance of Paige Zaziski who had a 9.900 in bars, 9.875 in beam and 9.800 on the vault.
"She came out with strong performances in three events," Cook said. "She has been pretty consistent for us all year and it's good to know we can count on her points."
Zaziski, a sophomore from Michigan, won the bars event for the fifth time in her career.
"I don't really think about my scores too much," Zaziski said. "We have a saying where we just try to 'stay in our bubble' and focus on each event, one girl at a time and if we're not competing we are supporting our teammates."
Zaziski was named 2015 SEC Co-Freshman of the Year and Cook said he was expecting big things out of her this year.
"To start with, Paige always has a great attitude and a great mental makeup for gymnastics," Cook said. "She's got a lot of enthusiasm for the sport and she puts in a lot of hard work that pays off. She has a great future ahead of her and we're glad it's here at Arkansas."
Other top Arkansas performances were Amanda Wellick (9.850) and Braie Speed (9.850) in bars, Sydnie Dillard (9.825) and Samantha Nelson (9.825) in beam, Sydnie McGlone (9.825) in floor and Wellick had a 9.900 in vault.
McGlone, a freshman from Ohio, had two of her top performances on vault and bars.
"I'm learning to have fun and be in the moment, soak everything and just do my gymnastics," McGlone said. "I went over kind of what I had the jitters on [Friday] settled in and figured out how to make everything click."
Sports on 01/18/2016