NCAA gymnastics final: Florida's Trinity Thomas ties record for 10s with perfect vault

No one has been more perfect in NCAA gymnastics history than Trinity Thomas.

The Florida star tied the NCAA record for the most perfect 10s scored in competition on Saturday during the national final against Oklahoma, Utah and LSU. With the Gators still in the mix for their first national championship since 2015, Thomas landed a perfect vault.

It was the 28th perfect score of her career, tying UCLA's Jamie Dantzscher and Kentucky's Jenny Hansen.

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The 22-year-old pretty much knew she had the 10 as soon as she stuck the landing. It was an emotional scene with her teammates, some in tears, embracing her as the score came in.

Thomas, who won the NCAA individual all-around championship last year, had a chance to break the record with a final uneven bars routine, but came up short with a 9.9125.

It was an impressive performance even before factoring in that Thomas' availability for the national finals had been in doubt for the past two weeks due to a lower-leg injury sustained during a floor exercise. She was listed as day-to-day earlier in the week and ultimately competed in only the bars and vault.

Across her career, Thomas posted 12 perfect scores in the floor exercise, six on the balance beam, five on the uneven bars and five on the vault.

It's worth noting that Thomas was competing in her fifth season due to the extra year the NCAA gave every athlete in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the comparison to Dantzscher and Hansen is difficult due to the chaos that pandemic wreaked on Thomas' schedule in 2020 and 2021. Thomas got four 10s in each of these seasons, and none in her freshman year in 2019.

The Gators finished just short of upsetting top-seeded Oklahoma, who held them off 198.3875-198.2375 to win their sixth team championship in nine years. Utah finished third and LSU placed fourth.

Who knows what could have happened had Thomas been fully healthy, for both the Gators and the NCAA record books.