There’s always talk of opportunity in acrobatics and tumbling. It’s a sport built to give chances to compete to athletes across the nation. It’s the buzzword for coaches around the country to pitch to potential athletes.

There’s another type of opportunity, though. It abounded when No. 4 Oregon walked into Matthew Knight Arena with the chance to knock off the undisputed queens of the sport, No. 1 Baylor. 

It was there for Oregon when, trailing by just 0.500 with one event to go, they stepped onto the mat for the team event.

They didn’t take it.

The Ducks (1-1) dropped their first meet of the 2025 season, 283.630 – 272.780, to the Bears (3-0) with a disastrous team event that couldn’t take advantage of Baylor mishaps earlier on. Oregon’s strengths — its freshman nous, pyramid efficiency and home crowd — didn’t make up for mental mistakes, and the Ducks’ losing streak against the nation’s best continues on.

Baylor hadn’t won a meet by less than 20 points before Saturday. Its best effort, a 41.88-point win over No. 14 Long Island University, didn’t just confer a win unto the NCATA’s best-ever program. It donated an air of dominance, and of confidence. 

The standards were set high early. Oregon put up a new season-high in the compulsory event (38.750), including a 9.900 in the pyramid and 9.950 in the toss, but Baylor matched both whilst edging past the Ducks in acro and tumbling to earn an initial 0.150 point lead.

It’s the smallest things in acrobatics and tumbling, though, and after Oregon freshmen Cassidy Cu and Angelica Martin improved on last week’s debut skill with a .200 improvement to their 9.650 mark from the opener, the Ducks blinked first. Base Blessyn McMorris, the reigning NCATA Athlete of the Week, took a step while balancing her top. Meanwhile, top Selah Bell struggled with her landing, and Oregon put up a 9.300 in the heat.

“It’s vital,” Oregon head coach Taylor Susnara said of her freshmen. “You can’t do it without everybody on this team, and Angelica and Cassidy are obviously very strong in the acro event, and they have good energy. They killed it in acro five. They improved from last week. We need everybody, but they’re a big part.”

The Bears’ eyes were wide open. Reigning NCATA Freshman of the Week Leavy McDonald and All-American top Jordan Gruendler showed off a seven-element acro skill similar to Cu and Martin’s split-and-bend, but with an added skill at the bottom where McDonald twisted from a split to a seated position.

While Oregon worked to recover, McDonald and Gruendler continued to impress. Their chemistry — especially between two athletes in their first full season together — is one of the Bears’ great strengths. Their open pyramid, where Gruendler showed off her backbend that has become one of Baylor’s core skills, scored a 9.950.

The turning point could’ve come next. One of Oregon’s best events — the only one where they scored a perfect 10 last season — is the open pyramid. 

It took a 15-minute wait through the half to find out, but the Ducks put up their first perfect score of 2025 in the open pyramid, which was turned sideways in a strategic move by Susnara and Oregon, to hang with the Bears and trail by just 1.450 points out of the break.

“Very happy with the 10,” Susnara said. “We’ve been working really hard on that. A little bit of strategy with turning it to the side, and it paid off.”

There was no comeback to be had, it seemed. The Ducks lost every heat in the toss event, where they scored as low as 9.250 and saw the Bears’ lead grow to more than two points for the first time all evening. 

The door was left open in the tumbling event, where Baylor tumbler Gigi Rendino stepped off the mat in the duo pass. That led to a 9.450 score, and Oregon took advantage to claw back into just a 1.500 point deficit headed into the team events. 

It was especially notable after a meet last week where two Ducks fell in their tumbling passes. There were no slips on Saturday, and save synchronization errors and underrotated skills in the quad pass, the Ducks flew high.

Then, the champs did what they almost never do: make mistakes. Bears junior Gianna Cameron stepped off the mat during her tumbling pass in a team event where Baylor kept giving the Ducks a chance.

“The message going into team event is,” Susnara said, “‘You’re right there. You’re both really good teams, and it’s gonna be survival of the fittest.” 

Oregon stepped off, too, though. A fall from Mari Fukutomi in the acro sequence sealed their fate, and the Ducks lost the event by nearly ten points, 100.130 – 90.780. The hundred-point score, a surprise after the step off in Baylor’s event, just slammed the door.

“At the end of the day, we didn’t show up,” Susnara said. “We had a lot of things go wrong, and Baylor came out mentally stronger today and got the win. We have some things to work on, for sure.”

It’s a painful continuation to a saga that plagues these Ducks. They haven’t beaten Baylor since 2021, and to be so close and fail to execute is a struggle. 

“I think we have a lot to work on in our bye week as far as consistency,” Susnara said. “I think that we let a little bit of the nerves get to us, just at the end. It was neck and neck.”

Neck and neck. Once again, though, Baylor was just a head above.

“Obviously, they’re the number one team,” Susnara said. “And for us — we have the opportunity to have two meets, and then we get spring break, and then we get to see [Baylor] again. I think it’s not over yet, and I think we have a really good shot going into it next time.”

The Bears walked into Matthew Knight Arena three hours before the team event with a brash, loud energy that could be mistaken for braggadocio — except they’ve earned it.

They walked out proven right.