Is it really that great to be a Florida Gator?
It’s better to be an LSU Tiger.
The reigning national and SEC champion LSU gymnastics team opened their SEC slate with a big win Friday in the PMAC. The third-largest crowd in program history bore witness to a 197.550-197.450 LSU win over Florida, the Tigers’ third straight over the Gators. The final rotation was very tight, and LSU nearly blew it, but they eked out the win thanks to a redemption routine.
What happened with Florida
It’s hard to win a meet with a fall on the first routine of the night, and that’s what happened to Florida. 49.025 on bars is not good enough against a team like LSU. The Gators looked very good all night, let’s not be fools about it. I need to apologize for saying they wouldn’t be trying hard enough to win because they put Selena Harris-Miranda in the all-around and went with what’s probably their best lineup on each event. They just got off on the wrong foot and failed to capitalize on LSU’s lackluster floor rotation. Florida has to travel to Oklahoma later this season, and Oklahoma hasn’t lost a home meet since LSU beat them in 2014. If they want to win their seventh consecutive SEC regular season title, they’ll need to be on their S game in the LNC.
For readers who wish to follow along to my notes on each routine, this is a link to the meet in full. Deductions I would’ve taken are in parenthesis and my final score is in brackets. If I note a split in scores after a person’s score, it means the judges had a difference of at least 0.1, something I think is worth noting because it shows that they didn’t agree.
Here’s the long form of every abbreviation I’ll be using below: Yurchenko Full (YF), Yurchenko 1.5 (Y1.5), half-in half-out (HIHO), double layout (DLO), round-off (RO), back handspring (BHS), layout-step-out (LOSO), front layout (FLO), front through to double tuck (FTDT).
LSU Vault 49.350; Florida Bars 49.025
As with the Collegiate Quad, all six LSU vaulters did Y1.5s. Lexi Zeiss led things off with a 9.775. She had leg separation in her first flight (.05), had soft knees in the air (.05), landed decently far to her left (.1), hopped (.1) and held her finish. I don’t know what happened with this, but it was off from the block. At least she got it around. [9.800]
Aleah Finnegan followed up with a fantastic 9.950. She twisted early on the table (.05), stuck the vault and failed to hold her finish for a full second (.05). This was great. [9.900]
Chase Brock then scored a 9.825. She lacked dynamic height (.05) and hopped forward (.1), but she held her finish. This was solid, but her block needs that extra oomph. [9.850]
Kaliya Lincoln got a generous 9.725 on a 9.65/9.80 split. She took two massive hops forward (.4) and another hop (n/a, cannot deduct more than 0.4 for landing errors) with a swing of her arms in between (.05) and failed to hold her finish (.05). I rarely get on judges anymore because it’s pointless, but a 9.80 for this requires you to have missed half of it. As for Kaliya, her body language made it clear that was a total fluke she was not expecting. [9.500]
Amari Drayton followed with a 9.875. She twisted early on the table (.05) and hopped forward (.1), but she held her finish. It was decent and up to her typical standards. [9.850]
Kailin Chio anchored the rotation with a 9.925. Her head was behind her shoulders on the block (.05) and she had a slight hop after trying to stick the landing (.05), but she held the finish. I think if she fixed the issue with her block, she would’ve stuck this considering the margin for error. It’s fantastic. [9.900]
Overall, this was good. Sticks come when the internals of the vaults are clean especially the block off the table. Those weren’t perfect this week, so they’ll be a likely area of focus. Bars looked solid, save for the part where they almost threw the meet away.
LSU Bars 49.300; Florida Vault 49.450 (LSU leads 98.650-98.475)
Lexi led off with a 9.825. She hit her first and second handstands, bent her arms in her Maloney (.05), bent an arm to catch her Pak (.05), nailed her low bar half turn, hit her final handstand, stuck her HIHO with some movement of her hands to keep her balance (.05) and held her finish. This was a very good routine to kick things off. [9.850]
Ashley Cowan followed with a 9.825 of her own. She hit her first handstand, caught her Ray with bent elbows (.05), nailed her overshoot, hit her final handstand, let go of the bar a bit late on her DLO which led to her from being off (.05) and her hopping back (.1), and held her finish. That dismount was weird, but that’s a rarity. [9.800]
Alexis Jeffrey returned to the lineup with a solid 9.900. She hit her first two handstands, bent her arms in her Maloney (.05), hit her bail handstand, came up short on her final handstand (.05), nailed her HIHO and held her finish. Outside of the missed final handstand, this is what I’ve come to anticipate from her routines. She’s one of the cleanest bars workers on the interior of her routine I’ve seen and when she hits her dismount, she can’t move her feet. [9.900]
Kailin had the first major mishap of her college career on a routine which scored a 9.225 on a 9.15/9.30 split. She hit her first handstand, fell over the bar (.5), remounted, hit her handstand, bent her arms (.05) and had some leg separation (.05) in her Maloney, way overdid her bail handstand (.1), hit her fourth handstand, nailed her Markelov, hit her final handstand and stuck her HIHO. Apparently she’d been having trouble due to sickness and this was a potential problem, but she did a great job recovering. [9.300]
Aleah pulled off a miracle on her routine and scored a 9.825. She nailed her first handstand, hit her piked Deltchev, hit her second and third handstands, hit her bail handstand, lost her grip on the low bar but regrasped and managed to save herself from hitting the mat with her foot (.1), hit her final handstand, stepped back (.1) with wavy arms (.05) on her full out, and held her finish for a full second. I tweeted “it’s over” when she lost her grip because I was certain she’d hit the mat and lost 0.3, but she twister her body to make sure that didn’t happen because she’s that incredible. [9.800]
Konnor McClain anchored the rotation with a 9.925. She hit her first handstand, bent her arms to catch her Church (.05), hit her second handstand, hit her third handstand, hit her Pak, nailed her low bar half turn, hit her final handstand, stuck her HIHO with a slight movement to maintain balance (.05) and held her finish. This was a fantastic routine to drop Kailin’s fall. [9.900]
Overall, that was scary, but they weathered it. This is something that can happen again, but now they know what they need to do next time. Beam was incredible.
LSU Beam 49.525; Florida Floor 49.500 (LSU leads 148.175-147.975)
Sierra Ballard led things off with a 9.875. She nailed her BHS LOSO, did a short sissonne (.05) to short switch half (.05), dipped her shoulder on her kickover front (.05), stuck her RO back double full and held her finish. This was a great start. [9.850]
Kylie Coen made her official collegiate debut and scored a 9.875. She had some leg in her front aerial to beat jump (.05), nailed her BHS LOSO, hit her switch leap to short split jump (.05), hit her full turn with no releve (.05), had a slight step back on her RO back double full (.05) and failed to hold her finish (.05). Overall, this was a solid debut. [9.800]
Kailin bounced back from her rough bars set with a 9.925. She nailed her BHS LOSO mount, nailed her BHS LOSO series, nailed her leap series, hit her front aerial to short split jump (.05), hit her full turn, stuck her BHS 1.5 dismount and held her finish. She’s got that Terminator mentality I see in every Oklahoma gymnast I’ve ever watched, wow. [9.950]
Konnor followed with a 9.900 on a 9.95/9.85 split. She hit her leap series, had some leg in her front aerial to BHS (.05), hit her full turn, wobbled in her turn in her choreography (.05), hit her side aerial, nailed her wolf jump, stuck her gainer full and failed to hold her finish (.05) in the classic “college stick” fashion the rule exists to end. She’s still got it. [9.850]
Haleigh Bryant made up for last week with a 9.950. The only deduction I saw was for a cheated turn in her straddle quarter (.05), everything else was incredible. [9.950]
Aleah anchored the lineup with a 9.775 that didn’t matter. She had a massive wobble and grabbed her legs to maintain her balance after her BHS LO LOSO series (.3), hit her leap series, hit her full turn, had some leg in her front aerial (.05), stuck her gainer full and held her finish. Yeah, judges didn’t do their jobs here either and it decided the AA title being a tie, but beyond that, it didn’t matter. This was an especially weird mistake because she didn’t need to wobble at all. Oh well. [9.650]
Overall, it was nice to see this vaunted beam squad show what it’s made of after the first two weeks of being okay. It needed to get put together this week and it was. Floor was the most disappointing rotation of the meet in my eyes, but it was good enough to get the win.
LSU Floor 49.375; Florida Beam 49.475 (LSU wins 197.550-197.450)
Sierra led off with a 9.825. She hit her DLO, slid forward on her back 1.5 to FLO (.05), came up short on each of her leaps (.1) and swung her arms under to maintain her balance (.05) in her stuck double pike. This was solid, but those leaps are a built-in deduction that keep her from going higher than 9.900. [9.800]
Olivia Dunne followed with a 9.875. She hit her FTDT, did a good switch leap to low switch ring (.05), moved back slightly on her double pike (.05) and did a solid enough Ferrari. I keep having to look a lot harder for deductions on her routines than I do elsewhere to justify the scores she gets because she does a great job. [9.900]
Amari was next with a 9.750 on a 9.80/9.70 split. She stepped forward out of her DLO (.1), hit her leap series, did her FTDT (the broadcast replay I use cuts off her second pass, I believe there was a step forward out of it too, so .1) and hits her wolf turn. It was ok, but it wasn’t as good as she’s capable of and not what was needed in the moment. [9.800?]
Kailin finished her night with a 9.825. She stepped forward out of her full out (.1), hit her switch ring to cheated (.05) tour jete half, hit her back 2.5 to front tuck and hit her split jump. This was good, but Florida was gaining momentum and the lead with their last two gymnasts remaining. [9.850]
Aleah needed a big hit to give the Tigers a shot of winning and delivered a 9.950. She nailed her double Arabian to stag, nailed her leap series, stepped back out of her back 2.5 to front tuck (.1) and hit her split jump. This was a great routine except for that one thing. [9.900]
Haleigh ended up needing a 9.825 to clinch the meet and got a 9.900. She had a slight hop out of her front double front (.05), hit her switch ring to cheated (.05) switch full, hit her back aerial and nailed her FLO to Rudi. In 2021, she needed to hit her floor routine to beat Florida, but she fell on her front double full, a pass that no longer exists in her routine (and one I called a 10 killer back in 2023). Five seasons later, she redeemed that moment and delivered a win. [9.900]
Overall, this was not the level of floor performance LSU’s supposed to do. It’s fine to have one of these nights when you have the luxury of having hit big on another event and having gotten a gift from the other team, and this was one of those nights.
Overall thoughts
I am so thankful this meet is over because the stress nearly killed me. For the first time this year, the Tigers had to battle back from a fall (Iowa State doesn’t count) and they did it. Kailin Chio did a fantastic job of pushing her fall away and moving on. Somehow, LSU got at least a share of all five individual titles (blame bad judging) in this meet, so that’s a thing. My brain is fried from processing this meet because it just felt weird having this great a battle so early. The improvements will come, and they better come soon because Arkansas on the road is no easy out.