Tigers spring to Saturday with superb floor rotation
Step 1 accomplished.
The #2 LSU gymnastics team took their first step to Fort Worth Thursday evening in dominant fashion, putting up the second-highest score in a regional in LSU history with a 197.800 to win the second Fayetteville Regional semifinal outright. #15 Minnesota tagged along with LSU to the regional finals with a 196.950, BYU finished 3rd with a 196.500 and Oregon State finished last with a 196.450. The two teams will face #10 (#12 in the NQS) Arkansas and #7 Kentucky today at 5.
Unlike other recaps, there will not be links to videos of the routines. I spent most of my day yesterday watching regionals and women’s basketball. I will upload them all, alongside all clips from regional finals, to the Twitter page I’ve linked many times in the past after regionals conclude. One other thing to note is that at some point during bars, head coach Jay Clark received a yellow card, which is the equivalent of a formal warning. It can be given to any person on a team whether that be a coach, gymnast or manager and if someone gets two, they get kicked out and the team incurs a 0.1 deduction from the overall score at the end of the meet. Yellow cards reset in full after each meet, so there’s nothing like in soccer about cards carrying over.
One last thing, I will give the judge-by-judge breakdown, in order of the judges on the scoresheet, of each score unless all four judges agreed on the score. Away we go.
LSU Vault 49.375 (LSU 2nd after 1)
This vault rotation didn’t have any sticks. KJ Johnson led off with a 9.850 on her Yurchenko Full. She hopped back (.1) and held the finishing position for a full second. [9.850]
Aleah Finnegan followed with another 9.850 on her Yurchenko 1.5 (Y1.5). She took a step forward on the landing (.1) and failed to hold the finishing position for a full second (.05). [9.850]
Amari Drayton made her regionals debut with a 9.850 [9.85/9.80/9.85/9.90] on her Y1.5. She took a step (.1) and a slide forward (.05) on the landing and held the finishing position for a full second. [9.850]
Savannah Schoenherr kept it coming with another 9.850 [9.85/9.90/9.85/9.80] on her Y1.5. She had a form issue in the air (.05), slightly underrotated it (.05), landed with her right foot on the right guide line (.05), hopped back slightly (.05) and held the finishing position for a full second. [9.800]
Chase Brock subbed in to give Kiya Johnson some rest on vault, and she delivered with a 9.900 [9.80/9.90/9.90/9.90] on her Y1.5. She had insufficient height (.05), hopped forward (.1) and failed to hold the finishing position for a full second (.05). [9.800]
Haleigh Bryant finished the rotation with a 9.925 [9.95/9.95/9.90/9.90] on her front handspring front pike half. She hopped back (.1), carried her momentum through her landing (.05) and held the finishing position for a full second. [9.850]
Overall, this was fine, but no stuck landings makes a rotation quite meh.
LSU Bars 49.375
Bars was good enough, too. Alexis Jeffrey returned to the bars lineup and scored a 9.850 [9.85/9.85/9.90/9.85]. She hit her first handstand, hit a straight Maloney, hit her bail handstand, came up short on her final handstand (.05), had her hips at her knees (.05) on her stuck half-in half-out (HIHO) and held her finishing position for a full second. [9.900]
Ashley Cowan kept her streak of heaters going with a 9.900 [9.90/9.95/9.90/9.85]. She hit her first handstand, nailed her Ray to Pak, came up short on her final handstand (.05), stuck her double layout (DLO) and failed to hold the finishing position for a full second (.05). [9.900]
Kiya followed up with a 9.850 [9.85/9.80/9.85/9.90]. She was short on her first handstand (.05), bent her arms in her Maloney (.05), hit her bail handstand, hit her third handstand, came up short on her final handstand (.05), stuck her DLO, held the finishing position for a full second, brought her heels together, and failed to hold the finishing position for a full second after that (.05). This is the second straight meet in which she’s done this and it’s the dumbest part of that rule of all. [9.800]
Konnor McClain made her regionals debut with a 9.875 [9.90/9.85/9.85/9.90]. She hit her first handstand, caught her Church close (.05) with bent arms (.05), hit both handstands she needed to do out of it since she couldn’t connect to an immediate Pak, hit her Pak, hailed her low-bar half turn, came up short on her final handstand (.05), stuck her HIHO and held the finishing position for a full second. [9.850]
Sav hit a nice routine for a 9.900 [9.90/9.95/9.90/9.75]. She hit her first handstand, bent her elbows in her Jaeger catch (.05), hit her second handstand, came up short on her third handstand (.05), hit her bail handstand, hit her final handstand, stuck her double front half and failed to hold the finishing position for a full second (.05). How on earth did a judge go 9.75? [9.850]
Haleigh anchored the rotation with a season-low 9.825 [9.80/9.85/9.80/9.85]. She was short on her first handstand (.05), caught her Jaeger cleanly enough, went way over on her second handstand (.1), hit her bail handstand, hit her final handstand, hopped back on her double front half (.1) and failed to hold the finishing position for a full second (.05). [9.700]
Overall, this might’ve been the roughest bars rotation on the bars in quite a while.
LSU Beam 49.350
Beam was also good enough. Sierra Ballard led off with a 9.850 [9.85/9.90/9.80/9.85]. She had a large check on her acro series (.15), hit her full turn, was short on her sissonne (.05) to switch half (.05), wobbled on her kickover front (.05), stuck her roundoff (RO) back 1.5 and held the finishing position for a full second. I don’t understand the 9.850 either, but when the bank errs in your favor, it’s best not to question why. [9.700]
Sav finished her night with a 9.875 [9.85/9.80/9.90/9.90]. She hit her front aerial, nailed her acro series, hit her full turn, hit her beat jump to cheated (.05) straddle 3/4, hopped back on her RO back double full (.1) and held the finishing position for a full second. I’m impressed. [9.850]
Konnor followed up with a 9.925 [9.95/9.90/9.90/9.95]. She hit her split jump, dropped her front leg before hitting her switch half (.05 rhythm deduction, not gonna hit her SV since it wasn’t as long a pause between skills), hit her acro series with a leg form issue (.05), hit her wolf jump, hit her full turn, hit her side aerial, stuck her gainer full and held the finishing position for a full second. I harp on about the finishing position a lot, but Konnor is someone who’s done a fantastic job of correcting her earlier mistakes with it. It shows how willing she is to address areas of weakness. [9.900]
Kiya followed with a 9.800 [9.80/9.70/9.80/9.80]. She hit her full turn, hit her acro series, was way short on both of her split jumps (.2), had a big check on her front toss (.1), stuck her RO back double full and held the finishing position for a full second. [9.700]
Haleigh put up another season low with a 9.825 [9.85/9.80/9.75/9.90]. She nailed her acro series, nailed her leap series, hit her full turn, hit the best standing front of her career, hit her split jump, stepped forward (.1) on her standing punch Rudi and failed to hold the finishing position for a full second (.05). It’s one of the classic “perfect until the dismount” routines. [9.850]
Aleah anchored the rotation with a 9.875 [9.85/9.65/9.90/9.90]. She had a check on her acro series (.05), was short on her switch leap (.05), hit her split jump, hit her full turn, hit her front aerial, hopped back slightly on her gainer full (.05) and held the finishing position for a full second. The judge who went 9.65 gave her a 9.80 SV for reasons one can only speculate. [9.850]
Overall, this was a wobbly rotation, but they need to get those out now before they start on beam in the final.
LSU Floor 49.700
After three good enough rotations, LSU went lights-out on floor and set a new program record for a regionals floor rotation. Konnor led off with a 9.900. She hopped forward out of her DLO (.1), but she was fine otherwise. [9.900]
Amari followed with a 9.900. She had a low chest on her DLO (.05), slid back out of her front through to double tuck (FTDT), her her wolf turn and hit her leap series. [9.900]
KJ drilled another great routine for a 9.950. The only deduction came in her leap series where she, as usual, overdid her switch side and underdid her Popa (.05). Her tumbling has been immaculate recently, and hopefully it continues to be that good. [9.950]
Aleah got a 10.0 [10.0/9.90/10.0/10/0]. It’s picky, but I think the 9.90 judge took a lot more for lack of control on the double Arabian that I would (.05). Other than that, it was incredible. This gave Aleah her 7th 10 of her career, breaking a tie she had with her sister Sarah and tying Lloimincia Hall for 6th in LSU history. [9.950]
Haleigh finished up her off night with an impeccable 9.950. She stuck her double front half for the second straight meet, hit her switch leap, came up short on her switch full (.05) and nailed her front layout to Rudi. She’s unreal. [9.950]
Olivia Dunne subbed in for Kiya at the last minute with the meet already in hand and put up a 9.900 [9.85/9.90/9.90/9.90] for the second straight time on floor at regionals. She slid back out of her FTDT (.05), hit her leaps, cheated the Y-turn (.05) and stuck her double pike. This might’ve been her best floor routine ever. [9.900]
Overall, it was an LSU floor rotation, they tend to go well.
Overall thoughts
This was not LSU at its best. Good, this should not have been LSU at its best. What they showed was their talent and growth throughout the year. This showed that the meets at Georgia and Missouri were the old LSU. It helped they had the benefit of Olympic order, and now they have confidence going into today’s meet. Also, the team is dealing with some virus running through them for the third straight year, and it’s half the reason I was willing to give them space on the finishing positions with the other half being that it’s regional semis. Now, it’s time to face the next test: the toughest regional final for any top seed in this tournament.