The Oklahoma women’s gymnastics team are now 7-time National Champions — a feat that at various points throughout the 2025 season, fans around the country had doubts about. But in the end it was the team’s mindset all season long that junior Faith Torrez felt was the driving force behind their victory.
“We’ve always said we do our best gymnastics when we’re having fun,” Torrez said. “I think letting loose a little bit more and just having fun, enjoying it, and being really present kind of helped us throughout the season.”
In many ways, staying present was easier said than done, with social media and TV broadcasts constantly reminding the world of the Sooners early exit in the 2024 NCAA Semifinal. But ultimately the team knew it was something they couldn’t erase, nor escape.
“I think at the end of (2024) season, everybody kind of wanted to tiptoe around what happened,” Torrez said. “But I think it was really great for us as a team to address it and feel it. It helped us to go into this season and really not take anything for granted.”
2025 marked the Sooners first season in the SEC — a conference that is known for producing some of the rowdiest environments and most competitive rivalries in all of collegiate sports.
The Sooners inaugural season in the SEC wasn’t a cake walk. A loss in the regular season to the then-reigning-national-champion LSU Tigers, forced the Sooners to share the regular season SEC title. Just over a month later, the Sooners fell short once again at the SEC Championship.
Torrez admitted there were points during this season where the team was carrying around the baggage of the year prior. However, the Sooners tried to take the lessons from their losses and keep pushing forward.
“As a team, we definitely had a lot of ups and downs, but I think that was really good for us,” Torrez said. “It’s such a great experience to feel the losses and feel the wins heavily, especially for our freshman class.”
The losses fueled the Sooners’ fire, as did the criticism from fans.
Towards the end of season, the team printed out comments that were made about them on social media and placed them around the locker room as a daily reminder of what they were working towards. Heading into the NCAA Championships, 5th year senior Audrey Davis took the comments and glued them onto a poster board that would travel with the team to Fort Worth. The poster board, Torrez joked, was Davis’ “science project.”
As fate would have it, the Sooners ended Semifinals on vault, the very event that ended their 2024 season, something that Torrez found a bit ironic. Even if last year still lingered in her mind, she knew she was going to make it after some encouragement from her teammate Ava Siegfeldt and a really solid warmup.
With over a three tenth buffer, the Sooners comfortably advanced to the NCAA Finals.
From there, the mission became competing with no regrets. They competed freely, and everyone was doing it for the team on Finals night, Torrez said, which made a big difference in the way they competed.
“Once we got to finals, everybody was like, ‘There are no regrets. There was nothing in our way stopping us,’” Torrez said. “We really did compete free and you could feel the difference.”
Torrez described the moment she stood atop the podium with her teammates as relieving — the hard work the team had put in every day throughout the season replaying in her mind. Even one week later, Torrez said the win still felt surreal.
Going into her senior season, Torrez said she wants to make it about more than just gymnastics. She wants to stay present in the moment, enjoy her final year in the sport, and help her teammates grow as people.
When asked about the legacy she hopes to leave behind, there was no mention from Torrez about her gymnastics accomplishments.
“Gymnastics is such a small part of our life, I want [my teammates] to be lifelong friends and just know that I was always there for them.”