Briya Alvarado hasn’t stopped moving for three-and-a-half minutes now.

It’s Feb. 21, and the sophomore is waiting for the judges to finish scoring the last tumbling pass in No. 2 Oregon acrobatics and tumbling’s meet against No. 3 Quinnipiac University. She’s not still, not sedentary. The Matthew Knight Arena speakers pump the air above the Ducks full of her chosen Ken Carson soundtrack. Alvarado’s constant movement on the edge of the mat, the dancing, jumping, body-shaking activity, has a couple of purposes.

It’s about distraction. She doesn’t get nervous, but she does feel pain. Her spotlight comes hours into the meet, after the cycle of warm-ups and half-minutes on the mat and warm-ups again repeats. All the dancing is about focusing on the present, not on the trainer’s table. She doesn’t have time to feel pain when she’s waiting, so she makes time for dancing and jumping and handstanding. She writhes in joy, not agony, when she waits there. 

It’s about entertainment. She believes that her sport is about showing off for the fans. She gets to stand there, in front of a room stocked with seats filled by people — families — who flew to Eugene to watch. When the music stops and her name rings out, she’s going to wave and grin.

It’s not out of fear. She’s never felt it, she said, those nerves that people talk about. Not on a final exam. Not speaking in front of a room. And certainly not on the mat. In her head, it doesn’t exist.

“It’s just a feeling at the end of the day,” the sophomore tumbler said. “Fear is not real. It’s all in your head, so it’s just a mind game. It’s really all it is.”

When she dances, it’s to the beat. Can’t you tell that she loves this part?

Maybe it’s her rocket-booster-equipped feet — the ones that bounce the sophomore tumbler up and down on the floor as her first walkup song (Carson’s “Freestyle 2”) ticks over to her second (“Overseas,” by the same) on this February evening. Maybe it’s the thought of the first enormous hug she’s going to give Oregon head coach Taylor Susnara afterward, or the second, or the third once she makes it through the tunnel of hands. It’s definitely the stage.

Hers is supposed to be the moment where the pressure comes to a head, when it’s supposed to get in your head. It’s designed that way. Acrobatics and tumbling solo passes are the only time in a three-hour meet that an athlete is on the floor alone, and they come just before the meet’s final, team event. They get a walkup song. They get a captive audience. They get their face on the Jumbotron hanging from the rafters of Matthew Knight Arena.

There’s three passes every night: in order, the aerial, which Alvarado debuted in as a freshman last year; the six-element, in which Morgan Willingham, one of her closest friends, competes; and the open, which is Alvarado’s today. Oregon’s roster is 41 athletes strong, but she is one of just three who gets the chance to make a standalone statement. Its first two tumblers, Nya Womack and Willingham, already made theirs tonight.

Alvarado is the final athlete. She gets the last word, and this is her music, her beat. She’s still dancing, knees in a circle, hands in the air, eyes flitting open and closed between this world and some other one. Fear exists in neither. It’s exactly what used to get her in trouble on the sideline in gymnastics. Now, she turns it up.

Grace

The name Grace is nowhere in Veronica Briya Alvarado’s given three. It’s what her mom, Inez Gutierrez, calls her, though. She doesn’t — didn’t — give herself a lot of it. As a freshman at Oregon, she’d feel the frustration when something new didn’t work the first time. She’d be ushered into the hallway by athletic trainer Bri Dixon, where Alvarado would scream her frustration out.

If there were people in the building, “They could probably hear me,” she said. 

First-year acrobatics and tumbling athletes have a lot of new to consume. There’s a new sport, with skill combinations and a thick binder of tenth-of-a-point deductions. They don’t have to memorize it, but they do need to understand it: Keep your feet together on toss landings. Don’t take extra steps in compulsory tumbling. Don’t fall.

The first two decades of Alvarado’s life were spent on elite gymnastics, which came with a need for perfection; “Everything about gymnastics is just more intense,” she said. She was on the elite pathway, through camps, with the Olympics in the front of her mind. She wanted to represent Mexico on the biggest stage in world sports. The constant time she spent staring down the big picture is why, she thinks, she never felt a nerve during those camps. 

More intense, too, meant more serious. In gymnastics, Alvarado remembers, she’d get in trouble for having a good time on the sideline — for showing her personality. Now, she keeps dancing.

“I love to perform and have the crowd be engaged with me and enjoy themselves, because this is a show for them at the end of the day, and I like to show them how incredible we really are,” she said.

Remember the name: Briya Alvarado 👑

The freshman SHINES in her first aerial solo pass!#GoDucks | #Power pic.twitter.com/PLmnWJ2JVG

— Oregon Acro&Tumbling (@OregonAcroTumb) February 16, 2025

By the end of her freshman year, Alvarado’s aerial pass had stunned with a debut 9.850 against Morgan State University and steadied at a season-long 9.788 average. She qualified for event finals in the heat with a 9.775 in the first round of the NCATA Championships. Over the summer, though, she didn’t even touch a dead mat. She tumbled maybe three times total in an effort to give her body a break, because she needs to be able to distract herself from the pain when she waits on the edge of the mat. She can’t get frustrated.

“Doctors appointments, you know, or another X-ray or CAT scan or something like that, or anything, can be frustrating,” she said. “I do get frustrated with myself sometimes. But I know it’s gonna be worth it in the end. I’m enjoying myself.”

The GOAT

When Alvarado came back to school for preseason practice, there was something new on the table. 

The tumbling style was already a step away from the gymnastics she’d grown up with. Topping was something else entirely — she’d be hoisted in the air, not running across the mat. Susnara wanted her as a top in the Ducks’ six-element acro, a synchronized heat in the second event.

Alvarado had the Greatest Of All Time on her side to help make it happen.

Before every six-element acro heat this year, fifth-year-senior base Blessyn McMorris (whom Alvarado calls “the GOAT”) and Alvarado are away from the crowd, tucked on a corner of the Ducks’ sideline near the stairs. They lock hands. They’re locked in, together; they call it “interlink Bluetooth” when it happens. McMorris is talking to her.

“This is our time,” Alvarado remembers McMorris saying. She doesn’t need cues from someone who holds her up every day. 

They take a deep breath. She reminds herself to give grace. For her, it’s not about being perfect — and that’s a word she thinks about a lot.

“To be able to succeed, you have to fail, so I really instilled that in myself this year,” she said. “It’s not going to be perfect the first time, and you literally have to fail to succeed. You can’t just succeed and succeed and succeed. There has to be some failure to be able to succeed.”

There’s plenty of room for failure in that binder of deductions.

“And then it’s not going to be perfection, either,” she said. “It’s kind of humanly impossible, but it can be close to perfection. So let’s try to strive for that and get as close as you can get to perfection and then just take a breather. Just take a deep breath. You’re a human at the end of the day, and so that’s why I do give myself some grace.”

Perfection

Before Alvarado danced to Ken Carson on the mat, she turned it all the way up in her car. She bass-boosted her headphones off her ears. The Alvarado on the mat was the same one who dances around her apartment. In that ultimate moment, she’s totally distracted.

She’s not thinking about her back, which might hurt sometimes. She’s not thinking about the outside world. She’s maybe thinking about the issue at hand. Her problem is the slim, 0.550-point lead that the Ducks are hanging onto. The nation’s No. 3 team would love nothing more than to upset No. 2 in its own house.

Alvarado, though, just loves the spotlight.

The judges are still scoring Quinnipiac’s open pass by the time “Freestyle 2” ends. The playlist clicks over to “Overseas.” Alvarado closes her eyes, then throws them open with another grin. She gets a hug from Ducks assistant coach Jacie Van de Zilver. Willingham and Martin are split behind her. The music cuts off.

Roundoff. Whip. Whip. Whip. Handspring. One-and-a-half. Tonight, there’s too much power to keep her on the floor. Her feet land — one, two — then bounce off the mat. There’s still the big hug. There’s still the tunnel. There’s a sliver of failure there, too, but the smile emerges.

That’s what this year has been about for her: grace in failure, smiles in stepoffs and dancing instead of fear.

On March 15, back in Eugene, Alvarado had the last word again. It wasn’t No. 3, but No. 4 Iona University on the other side. Over the course of the week, Susnara had pushed Alvarado to prioritize quality repetitions over quantity. Six-element acro hadn’t gone the Ducks’ way, and a fall in the heat left her team trailing. This time, the problem was a 1.850-point deficit.

“Freestyle 2” played. The steps were the same they’d always been. Roundoff. Whip. Whip. Whip. Handspring. One-and-a-half. The score came back: a career-high 9.900. It’s perfect — or as close as she’d been, with a little room for grace. Her score turned the deficit into an advantage. Oregon’s team event closed out the win. 

A new season best score of 9.900 for Briya Alvarado in the open tumbling pass! #GoDucks | #Power pic.twitter.com/z18pEp5srQ

— Oregon Acro&Tumbling (@OregonAcroTumb) March 16, 2026

“Briya’s growth has been really huge,” Susnara said afterward. “She showed out today and her mental toughness, if you will, or her emotional toughness, really, has gotten so much better from freshman year, and so today I was really proud of her for that.”

Call it whatever you want: toughness, room for grace, her swag. It’s arrived. She’s arrived. When she’s standing there, dancing on the edge of the mat, the world is hers. 

You can bet she’s going to own it.

Oregon faces No. 1 Baylor April 6 at Matthew Knight Arena. The meet is scheduled for 6 p.m.