Nya Womack was in the airport when the quad entered the discussion.

The true freshman was headed back from Missouri after Oregon acrobatics and tumbling put the bow on its season-opening win. In the airport, she said Ducks head coach Taylor Susnara approached her with a proposal: the quadruple whip.

Two weeks of practice later, Womack took the mat for her first-ever solo pass, encircled by teammates. Oregon led No. 3 Quinnipiac by 0.550 points. The aerial heat is the first solo pass of the meet — the first time an athlete is alone on the mat.

20 seconds, four whips and two big hugs after that, she was back on the Ducks’ sideline with a big grin. She didn’t even know the score yet; that would come later. This smile was about execution. Oregon’s is a program built to provide opportunities for athletes to shine when they’re ready. Those two weeks built on a fall term spent learning and a person whose confidence and learning ability are the first thing teammates talk about.

When she stepped on the mat, surrounded by those teammates, “I just did what I knew how to do,” she said.

Nya Womack posts a 9.80 in the aerial pass!#GoDucks | #Power pic.twitter.com/4zpJ8j04jV

— Oregon Acro&Tumbling (@OregonAcroTumb) February 21, 2026

Womack’s process goes back to her life before acrobatics and tumbling. Most recruits have a background in artistic gymnastics, acrobatic gymnastics or cheerleading. Womack came to Eugene with experience in both worlds. There’s the obvious change that she talked about — yes, tumbling passes are visually similar to passes in gymnastic floor routines, but there’s no spring floor in Matthew Knight Arena.

“With gymnastics, it’s more so tumbling, and with cheer I have a stunting background, so having to combine that with my tumbling on dead mat was definitely an experience,” Womack said. “It took a lot of work all through fall term.”

Claiming a solo pass as a freshman is rare. Doing it at Oregon, where the room this year has more than enough athletes capable of maximum or close-to-maximum difficulty passes than most other teams in the NCATA, at the program which has claimed seven of 24 national event titles in tumbling since 2022 alone, is even more so.

One of those tumblers was watching Womack hurtle across the mat while preparing for her own solo pass. Briya Alvarado qualified for NCATA event finals last year as a freshman in what’s now Womack’s aerial heat. This year, Alvarado is in the open heat, where she competes a triple whip with a one-and-a-half, but she’s been watching the Ducks’ newest tumbler rise.

“From the side, that girl is a hard worker, and even the confidence was already there, so when they brought that idea to her, she started that and it was like if she’s done it for years,” Alvarado said.

The sophomore top/tumbler with a gymnastics background heaped all the praise she had on Womack — “She’s a great listener, takes (feedback), applies it right away,” she said. “She is incredible, and continuing to progress every practice.”

There was no doubt. Alvarado loves to give Womack guidance, but it’s also about, “Just kind of (being) there, just in case, because she’s already got it,” Alvarado said. “She’s already got it down, and I have my full trust in her.”

It couldn’t have been more obvious, either when Womack punched the end of her pass or when the 9.800 score strapped rockets to the shoes of the Oregon sideline a few minutes later. They were jumping up and down as the PA rattled off the Ducks’ solo pass scores:  “Oregon, 9.800…Oregon, 9.800…Oregon, 9.700.”

By the end of the announcement, the lead was up to 1.175 points. An imperfect team event was still more than enough to capitalize and secure Oregon’s second win of the season, over the nation’s third-ranked preseason team. 

A half-hour later, Womack stood in the sunlight, up a flight of stairs from the mat.

“It’s a surreal experience for me, because I never thought that I’d be here,” she said, enveloped among a whole lot of green.

Blessyn McMorris is in her fifth year at Oregon. She’s the Ducks’ most decorated athlete, with the individual and team awards to prove it. Before the meet, she said that they’d measure success on Saturday not just by the win column but by, “improving and growing in confidence in our skills.” Womack hasn’t been around as long as McMorris, but when she talked about the Ducks’ tumbling event after the meet, she talked about how, “the confidence from everybody was there.”

Again, McMorris has been here longer, and Womack is still adding to her arsenal, but she’s “earned her place on the mat,” the veteran said. It happened somewhere in between a fall term learning a new sport, and 14 days of her freshman winter term spent whipping across a mat at Matthew Knight Arena.

Two weeks ago, somewhere in that airport after Susnara tossed out the idea to her freshman, a board blinked: NOW ARRIVING.

Two weeks later, Womack did.