Maggie Nichols Named Big 12 Gymnast of the Year for 2020
Oklahoma senior Maggie Nichols was named Big 12 Conference Gymnast of the Year on Monday.
Nichols was also named All-Big 12 All-Around and became the first Big 12 gymnast in history to earn All-Big 12 honors in all four events (Bars, Beam, Floor and Vault) and all-around three times.
It was the eighth year in a row a Sooner earned the Big 12’s top honor.
Nichols won 28 events this season, including four all-around titles. She leads the nation in all-around (39.796) and vault (9.967) and ranks second on bars (9.950) and fourth on floor (9.946).
It was Nichols’ second conference gymnast of the year award of her career. She is the league’s all-time leader with 16 career Gymnast of the Week accolades.
OU’s Ragan Smith was the eighth Sooners to earn Big 12 Newcomer of the Year. Smith won nine event titles in 2020, including her first career all-around title against Stanford on Feb. 21. She finished the season ranked No., 7 in the nation on bars (9.855) and helped the Sooners to a 16-0 meet record and the No. 1 ranking in the nation.
Anastasia Webb (Vault, Beam and Floor) and Jade Degouveia (Bars) also landed All-Big 12 honors.
The All-Big 12 squad consists of the conference gymnasts with the top three highest national qualifying scores (NQS) on each event in addition to the top two all-around gymnasts.
Denver’s Alexis Vasquez was named Big 12 Event Specialist of the Year after taking seven even titles on beam, including two perfect 10s. Her beam average of 9.938 led all Big 12 gymnasts.
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