What a bounce back from the meet prior
That’s more like it.
The reigning SEC and national champion LSU gymnastics team got back to their winning ways Friday. The ninth-largest crowd in school history bore witness to one of the best performances by any team in 2025 in the 198.000-197.125 win over Missouri. LSU became the second team in the nation to reach the 198 plateau, following up Florida’s 198.125 the week before.
Kailin Chio wins SEC Freshman of the Week again
For the third time in the first five weeks of the season, Kailin won SEC Freshman of the Week. Her 39.650 all-around score was the second highest in the SEC behind the 39.725 from Oklahoma’s Faith Torrez and Jordan Bowers, both of whom shared SEC Co-Gymnast of the Week honors. That score is also the fifth-highest AA score by a freshman (Kiya Johnson holds the record with a 39.750 at the 2020 GymQuarters Invitational). This also gave Kailin her first career AA title.
What happened with Missouri
Missouri did better than what their final score indicates, in my opinion. A low 197 on the road in January is really good and an indication of their trajectory, especially when you recognize that they weren’t able to put up their best lineup since their bars lead was out. They drilled vault and floor at a high level, and I’d say their floor rotation was a bit underscored. I called Mizzou a dark horse for a nationals berth, and this reinforced that. Helen Hu’s 9.975 on beam earned her SEC Specialist of the Week honors for the third consecutive week, a feat only 2023 Trinity Thomas has accomplished in the award’s history.
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 49.550, Missouri Bars 49.350
KJ Johnson returned to the lineups with her lead-off YF and scored a 9.900 (9.85/9.95). She twisted early on the table (.05), stuck it cleanly and held her finish. This was just her second vault of the year and it lit a fire under the team. [9.900]
Chase Brock followed with a 9.925 on her Y1.5, the same vault everyone who followed did. She lacked good height (.05), but she stuck the thing cold and failed to hold her finish for a full second (.05). She might’ve twisted early on the table, but it was iffy. Either way, another solid landing. [9.900]
Aleah Finnegan then got a 9.925 on her vault. She had a form error before she landed (.05), stuck with her left foot on the left directional line (.05) and with a balance issue (.05), and held her finish. It was solid, and it’s shocking she managed to stick it when looking at the ending. [9.850]
Kaliya Lincoln drilled her vault for a 9.925. The only issue I saw was leg separation in her first flight (.05), everything else was immaculate. It’s nice to see that potential shine through. [9.950]
Amari Drayton followed with a 9.750 (9.80/9.70). She underrotated it (.1), had a combined two steps (.2) and held her finish. She tried a bit too hard to stick the landing and instead she did that, but it was a pretty aggressive mistake. [9.700]
Kailin Chio anchored the rotation with a 9.875. She hopped on the landing (.1), but everything else looked solid. [9.900]
Overall, wow! This was a remarkable start. It tied Florida for the best vault score in the nation at the time, a mark Michigan State broke less than a day later with a 49.600. If that’s the standard, things are going to go very well. Things kept chugging along on bars.
LSU Bars 49.425, Missouri Vault 49.175 (LSU leads 98.975-98.525)
Lexi Zeiss led things off with a 9.850 (9.90/9.80). She hit her first two handstands, had bent arms (.05) and wasn’t straight (.05) in her Maloney, hit her Pak, nailed her low bar half turn, hit her final handstand, hopped back slightly on her HIHO (.05) and held her finish. This was a good start. [9.850]
Ashley Cowan followed with a 9.850 (9.80/9.90). She hit her first handstand, bent her arms to catch her Ray (.05), hit her overshoot, hit her final handstand, hopped back slightly on her DLO (.05) and held her finish. Her consistency is incredible. [9.900]
Alexis Jeffrey drilled her set for a 9.925. She hit her first two handstands, bent her arms (.05) in her Maloney, hit her bail handstand, appeared to be short on her final handstand (.05), drilled her HIHO and held her finish. It’s hard to give notes on something I keep seeing look this good week after week. [9.900]
Kailin kept things going with a 9.925 of her own. She hit her first handstand, bent her arms in her Maloney (.05), hit her bail handstand, hit her third handstand, hit her Markelov, hit her final handstand, stuck her HIHO and failed to hold her finish for a full second (.05). This was fantastic save for those two very minor deductions. [9.900]
Aleah followed with a 9.800 (9.75/9.85). She hit her first handstand, hit her piked Deltchev, went way over on her second handstand (.1), hit her third handstand, nailed her bail handstand, came up short on her final handstand (.05), nailed her full out and failed to hold her finish (.05). Of course she nails it on her worst routine when she has no pressure, that’s sometimes what it takes. [9.800]
Konnor McClain anchored with a 9.875. She hit her first handstand, nailed her Church to Pak, hit her low bar half turn, hit her final handstand, took a step back on her HIHO she didn’t really want to take (.1) and held her finish. That was one of the cleanest routines I’ve seen from this team all year on any event until the dismount. [9.900]
Overall, this was very good. The aggression is very good, and a lot of that aggression is getting reeled in over time like with Ashley’s routine. Beam looked great, too.
LSU Beam 49.550, Missouri Floor 49.325 (LSU leads 148.525-147.850)
Sierra Ballard led things off with a 9.875. She nailed her BHS LOSO, nailed her full turn, did a short sissonne (.05) to short switch half (.05), hit her kickover front, stuck her RO back double full with some slight movement to maintain balance (.05) and held her finish. This was the start they needed. [9.850]
Kylie Coen threw out last week’s off night with a 9.900 (9.95/9.85). She had some leg in her front aerial to beat jump (.05), nailed her BHS LOSO, nailed her leap series, hit her full turn with low releve (.05), stuck her RO back double full and held her finish. This was phenomenal. [9.900]
Kailin drilled her routine for a 9.950. The only thing I saw was some leg in her front aerial (.05), the rest of this routine was absolutely gorgeous. [9.950]
Konnor followed with a 9.950 of her own. One note is that she added a split jump to her leap series and took out the side aerial. I don’t know why it happened, but anything that removes a side aerial from a routine is a good thing to me. Also, her only deduction in my judgment came for leg form in her front aerial (.05). Otherwise, this was immaculate. [9.950]
Haleigh Bryant then scored a 9.875. She nailed her front aerial to BHS, nailed her leap series, hit her full turn, hopped back (.1) and had a big wobble (.1) on her standing front, hit her split jump, took a very slight step back on her standing punch Rudi (.05), and held her finish. That standing front gives her fits, and this was another example. [9.750]
Aleah anchored with a 9.850. Prior to the dismount, she only had some leg in her front aerial (.05). Then on her gainer full, she swung her arms to try and keep her balance (.05), took two steps back (.2) and never held her finish (.05), an unfortunate ending to a solid routine. [9.650]
Overall, this was solid again. I’ve never had such little anxiety watching a beam rotation, and that’s thanks to what had been happening in the other rotations. This was not the team that lost to Arkansas, and they made sure to finish the job on floor.
LSU Floor 49.475, Missouri Beam 49.325 (LSU wins 198.000-197.125)
Sierra led things off with a 9.850 (9.80/9.90). She nailed her DLO, hit her back 1.5 to FLO, did a hit switch half to short (.05) sissonne and had a low chest (.05) and form error (.05) in her hit double pike. This was a decent start, though the need to break her form in the double pike to land it properly is something I’m looking out for as a potential issue in the future. [9.850]
Chase followed with a 9.875. She had a low chest on her full out (.05), cheated her wolf jump full (.05), hit her back 1.5 to FLO and hit her switch side to cheated (.05) Popa. Both of the people with issues on their full outs hit them in this meet. As for this routine, those turns are going to need to get better because judges appear far more willing to deduct for them, and that’s especially true in routines that use them to make up for a lack of difficulty in the tumbling. [9.850]
Kailin finished her night with a 9.900. She had a low chest on her full out (.05), 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 a great finish to the best night of her young career. [9.900]
Amari followed with a 9.900 (9.95/9.85). She hit her DLO, nailed her leap series, slid back on her FTDT (.05) and hit her final ring leap. I didn’t think this was a 9.95-worthy routine from watching it, but I don’t think there’s anything else I’d take. This was a good, clean routine. [9.950]
Aleah was next with a 9.750. She carried her momentum through her double Arabian to her stag jump (.05, it’s clear she used the stag jump to prevent further deductions), did a hit switch ring to short (.05) tour jete half, stepped forward (.1) out of bounds (.1 ND) on her back 2.5 to front tuck and came up short on her split jump (.05). The issues on each pass came from over rotation, especially on the second when her chest was beyond vertical before the front tuck. These last two meets have been below her incredible standards, but it’s fine. [9.650]
Haleigh finished things off with a 9.950. The only deduction I saw came when she failed to complete the turn on her switch full (.05) to the point where anyone paying attention would notice she was trying to cover it up. Everything else was fantastic. [9.950]
Overall, this was closer to the standard of LSU floor. It felt like things were going to go much better, and they did.
Overall thoughts
For those who didn’t count, LSU stuck/hit 15/24 vaults/dismounts (final floor passes are often called dismounts). That’s ridiculous. The team that showed up in this meet looked dangerous. The most impressive part was that the big hits came from everyone. I’m not an expert judge and I have the benefit of rewatching each routine until I find deductions, and y’all know I can get a bit stingy. All 13 gymnasts that competed for LSU got at least one score of 9.850 in my rewatch, and nobody went below 9.650.
If this is what LSU is going to do going forward, they can beat anyone. It’s unreasonable to expect this team to hit at that level every meet because it’s unsustainable; not even Oklahoma can do it. However, if this kind of fire and determination is what drives them the rest of the season, they are a national championship threat. However, that mindset has to travel to Tuscaloosa, which is also where I’ll be for the next meet.