FORT WORTH, Texas — A magical season came to a close for the Arkansas gymnastics team on Thursday afternoon in the first session of the NCAA National Championships.
The Gymbacks returned to nationals as a team for the first time in six years and for the first time ever in the Jordyn Wieber era.
The final eight teams were split into two groups of four, with Arkansas drawing the assignment of going against #2 LSU, #3 California and Stanford in the afternoon session in Fort Worth.
Arkansas started on their worst event, beam, where the team posted a 48.8125 with Kalyxta Gamiao and Cally Swaney both finishing as the top scorers with a 9.850. Behind them it was Maddie Jones - 9.8125, Cami Weaver - 9.6625 and Hailey Klein - 9.6375.
From there the Gymbacks moved to their best event floor, where the team would do slightly better, recording a 49.1375. Frankie Price led the way with a 9.8875, with her teammates scoring as follows, Gamiao - 9.8250, Klein - 9.8000, Jones - 9.8125, Leah Smith - 9.6250. Lauren Williams - 9.8125.
By that point in the meet the Razorbacks were already more or less assured to miss the cut, however they would go on to post their two best team scores of the meet in the final two events.
Vault marked their best of the day at 49.3250, with Cami Weaver and Leah Smith both scoring high marks of 9.8875. Rounding out the group were Price - 9.8750, Dakota Essenpries - 9.7625, Klein - 9.8500, Williams - 9.8250.
Finally the Gymbacks would finish on the bars where they would put up an overall score of 49.2000 and record the only individual score over 9.9 with Reese Drotar's 9.9250. Behind Drotar's mark the team followed as such: Swaney - 9.8125, Jamie Pratt - 9.7875, Priscilla Park - 9.800, Jensen Scalzo - 9.8750, Jones - 9.7875.
The Gymbacks finished the session in fourth place with a score of 196.475, their third-lowest score of the season.
LSU and Cal advance to Saturday's final where they will meet the top two teams from Thursday's evening session featuring Alabama, Oklahoma, Utah and Florida.