AZUSA, Calif. — Taylor Susnara had a message for her team before her fifth NCATA Championships as a head coach: “We can’t win a title if we don’t win each day.”

The Ducks won Day 1 today. It wasn’t just the win over No. 7 Gannon University; it was how it ended, with a team event hit that was eight meets in the making. It was how it started, with an acro event that separated her team from its opponent. There were nerves it had to shake, but they were shaken, and a Day 1 win was what they got in return.

“National semifinalist” isn’t the title that Susnara was talking about, of course, and the Ducks still have two more days to win if they’re going to take the one she was referring to. The coach made sure to clarify that there was room for improvement, but a team event that she was happy with was the missing piece throughout much of the season.

Now, the Ducks have finished that puzzle. It’s time to find the next one.

Team event finally hit

After the meet, Blessyn McMorris was asked how the team event felt after the meet. She turned the question on the room. Freshman top/tumbler Addison Brodie and senior base/tumbler Shea Barnes sat to her right. Head coach Taylor Susnara was sitting across from her athletes.

“I think this is our first time hitting team event at a meet,” McMorris said.

Total agreement; a sea of yeses and uh-huhs confirmed it.

Judging a team event “hit” is difficult to do in acrobatics and tumbling. The Ducks had put together team events that were good enough to cap five wins this season, but they hadn’t really hit it yet. It came up after the last meet, when Susnara said her dissatisfaction came from a lack of execution in that event.

“Obviously, we focused on every event, every heat,” Susnara said today. “But team event is something that we’ve struggled with this year, and you can be neck and neck with somebody up until team event, and if you hit it, you can win the meet, and if you don’t, you might lose.”

She hoped it was fun. Cassidy Cu said it was. The fun paid off when their event was clean.

Notes on nerves

What stood out from Cu’s press conference was the two times she mentioned nerves.

The first time, she talked about the absence of them. When she and Angelica Martin walked out for the five-element heat at the NCATA Championships last year, Cu said she felt those butterflies. It’s reasonable — they were freshmen and even with a season of the sport under their belt, nationals is another level.

This year, she said, those butterflies were gone when they took the mat in acro. She was in the moment, not awed by it. She and Martin smiled when they finished their two heats, like they already knew the five-element 9.900 was coming. The big hug that Cu gave Susnara was just the confirmation.

Then she mentioned nerves again. Oregon swapped Cu into the open pyramid recently, because Susnara wanted her in the heat and liked how it had looked in practice, the coach said. Selah Bell, who still competed elsewhere in the meet on Thursday, has generally been the top in that heat. When Oregon’s group brought Cu down slightly off-center, it brought them down to a 9.775.

“It wasn’t our best, obviously, but I’m still happy with how it went,” Cu said. “I think it was more so just a mind game, that one. I was pretty nervous going into it, (and) just switched recently…so I think I was just in my head a little bit, but I know it’ll be better.”

Mental fortitude has been something that Susnara has talked about for a while. In 2024, she talked about how she’d identified mental strength as an area for improvement, and it’s been a consistent topic since. That’ll be an area of discussion for the next couple of days as the stage gets bigger, but it’s proof that Susnara’s approach is working.

What did this meet mean?

Some of the answer to this question seems obvious: it meant that the Ducks hit a team event in a meet, that they’ve proved that they can do it, and that the only thing left is to do it all at once. That’s all accurate, and it’s the most important thing with a semifinal matchup against No. 3 on the schedule for tomorrow.

The other part of the answer is hidden inside that. Oregon is settled in SoCal, it appears, which isn’t always a guarantee for a team that traveled to compete, did so after the longest break between meets of its season and has multiple freshman starters who’ve never seen this stage before.

The difference is the leadership that the Ducks say has seeped through the team. McMorris made putting leadership on the shoulders of others, too, a goal at the start of the season. After this meet, she feels like that’s happened.

“I think that I know my role, and my role as a leader, because I’ve had it for a while,” McMorris said. “But I think that over the course of this year, we’ve definitely had other people step up; people that haven’t usually stepped up are stepping into that role.”

She recognized it against Gannon.

“It makes me really happy to see that, especially seeing them take charge and take the lead,” McMorris said. “Even today when we were bringing it together or saying cues, we have a lot more girls being vocal now, and I feel like they’ll definitely be set up for success.”

Oregon faces No. 3 Quinnipiac University tomorrow at 4:30 p.m.