Oregon acrobatics and tumbling is on the road to begin its season for the first time in three years in 2026. The Ducks will face Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, on Feb. 8 in what should amount to a warm-up meet for the away group. Under head coach Taylor Susnara, the Ducks are 3-1 in season openers. The Bears, in their single season of competition, are 0-1. Sunday is the opener for both sides.

The Bears, a Division I university, enter their second season of competition in the NCATA off the back of a 1-7 finish in 2025 — their lone win in a gauntlet schedule came over East Texas Baptist University. They were 0-3 at home, where they faced No. 11 Augustana University, No. 15 Duquesne University and No. 1 Baylor University, and 1-3 on the road, where they also faced then-No. 4 Augustana.

They didn’t fare well against ranked teams (0-4 with an average margin of loss of 90.616 points), even when accounting for the fact that they didn’t compete a team event in two of the four losses. In those two losses where the Bears didn’t put a team event on the floor, their losses exceeded the 110-point maximum value of the event; their average score in team was 59.405.

Missouri State’s season-high in points, 208.540, came in their final meet of the 2025 season, against Morgan State University in the “Battle of the Bears.” In that meet, Missouri State overcame significant (sub-six-point scores) struggles with a pair of 9.25-plus-point scores in seven-element acro and open pyramid to reach that high score. The Bears’ win, over East Texas Baptist, was a true win (where they outscored their opponent by more than the difference in start value). The 14.195-point victory over Division III ETBU is the only win in Missouri State’s history.

Both Oregon and Missouri State faced Baylor and Morgan State in 2025 — the Ducks took a comprehensive victory over the latter in their season opener and dropped three meetings with the former, including the NCATA National Championship. The Bears lost both outings by an average margin of 51.713 points.

Against Morgan State last season, the Ducks didn’t wait to ramp up the difficulty. While Susnara sometimes increases skill difficulty throughout the season, Oregon submitted sub-10.0 start values in two of 15 possible non-10.0 heats against Morgan State, both of which remained on their sheet throughout the season due to the difficulty of combining skills to reach the 10.0 value in the 450 Salto and synchronized toss heats. Both their 2024 season opener, against Hawaii Pacific and their 2023 opener, at Augustana, featured five sub-10.0 values. Susnara’s first-ever meet as Oregon head coach, at Baylor in 2022, had six sub-10.0s.

The Bears’ head coach, Kimberlee Adkins, traces her acrobatics and tumbling roots to Gannon University, where she competed in 2014-15. The Missouri State job is her first at the Division I level — she coached at the DII level at two prior stops. Sunday’s meet will be the first time she’s faced Oregon.

Missouri State’s final meet of the 2025 season had 13 sub-10.0 start values and totaled 256.400 possible points. Oregon’s final meet had two for a total value of 299.030. Even if those values get closer on Sunday (and it’s very possible they will with a season of experience under Missouri State’s belt), anything but an Oregon win would be a surprise.

The Ducks’ meet against the Bears is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Feb. 8. Watch the meet here.