It was a learning moment
That wasn’t ideal.
The reigning national and SEC champion LSU gymnastics team opened their SEC road slate with a loss for the third straight year Friday. A packed Bud Walton Arena got to see their Arkansas Razorbacks take down the Tigers 196.875-196.600. For the second time in three years, the Tigers entered the final rotation with a lead over Arkansas before having a tough beam rotation during Arkansas’ strong floor rotation.
What happened with Arkansas
Arkansas looked okay in this meet. Nothing was all that mind-blowing on their first three events, and beam was an off event. However, they are a floor team, and when they have the right energy, they hit hard. I still have several questions about them as a team, especially on beam, but this felt solid. They looked like a team hovering around the middle of the top 16 that’s working its way up over time.
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. Please note that I had a more difficult time determining some things because the camera work at this meet was poor.
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 Bars 49.375, Arkansas Vault 49.250
Lexi Zeiss led things off with a 9.850. She hit her first two handstands, bent her arms in her Maloney (.05), hit her Pak, momentarily lost her grip on the low bar (.1) going up to her hit low bar half turn, hit her final handstand, stuck her HIHO with perfect chest position and held her finish. If she didn’t have that regrasp of the low bar, this would’ve been a 9.900 at least. That dismount was superb. [9.850]
Ashley Cowan followed with a 9.875. She hit her first handstand, bent her arms to catch her Ray (.05), nailed her overshoot, overdid her final handstand (.05), stuck her DLO and held her finish. That final handstand was the result of too much aggression, and those are mistakes that come from a good mindset. [9.900]
Alexis Jeffrey followed with a 9.875. 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), stuck her HIHO with her left arm coming up from underneath to keep her balance (.05) and held her finish. Aside from the missed handstand, this was her doing what she’s done for the last two seasons. [9.850]
Kailin Chio managed to get through her routine without falling and got a 9.725. 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, took about 2.5 steps back on her HIHO landing (.25), swung her arms during her steps (.05) and failed to hold her finish (.05). She flung out of her dismount too early and caused that wonky landing. [9.600]
Aleah Finnegan followed with a 9.850. She hit her first handstand, bent her arms to catch her piked Deltchev (.05), hit her second and third handstands, hit her bail handstand, hit her final handstand, stepped back (.1) and moved her right arm to maintain her balance (.05) on her full out, and held her finish. That dismount is going to work eventually, it just needs a bit more time. [9.800]
Konnor McClain anchored the rotation with a 9.925. She hit her first handstand, bent her arms to catch her Church (.05), had leg separation in her Pak (.05), nailed her low bar half turn, hit her final handstand, stuck her HIHO beautifully and held her finish. Credit to the judges for deducting on elements that sometimes get ignored. When she cleans those up and pairs it with a dismount of that quality, she’ll get another 10. [9.900]
Tori Tatum scored a 9.250 (9.30/9.20) on her exhibition routine (I won’t be scoring it). She was short on her first handstand, hit her Ray, tried to go up for a handstand but can’t (not sure how a judge deducts for this), hit her next handstand, had leg separation in her Pak, hit her low bar half turn, swung under to get to the high bar, hit her final handstand, had a low landing on her HIHO with a step forward and failed to hold her finish for a full second. This was a labored routine that wasn’t nearly as strong as what she’s done in the past.
Overall, this was a solid rotation. Aside from Kailin’s routine, the mistakes came more from the interior of the routines on small details. Lexi and Konnor had their best landings of the season, and that’s a great sign. Vault was decent, too.
LSU Vault 49.350, Arkansas Bars 49.250 (LSU leads 98.725-98.500)
It was another night of six straight Y1.5s starting with Lexi’s 9.800. She had soft knees in the air (.05), landed on the left of the vault mat (.05), hopped forward (.1) and held her finish. It was fine. [9.800]
Chase Brock nailed her vault for a 9.900. The only issue I saw was lack of distance (.05). Everything else was perfect to me, so maybe the judges were being stingy about her form or something. Either way, this was one of her best vaults (she did better in 2023). [9.950]
Aleah followed with a 9.750. She twisted early on the table (.05), underrotated the vault (.1), stepped back (.1) and held her finish for a full second. She threw the vault out too early and caused all those issues. [9.750]
Kaliya Lincoln somehow got a 9.850. She had leg separation in her first flight (.05), a large hop on her landing (.2) and a held finish. This felt like an example of the judges holding back for no reason and another example of Kaliya needing to hold back a bit on her power. [9.750]
Amari Drayton followed with a 9.850 on a 9.80/9.90 split. She underrotated it slightly (.05), hopped back (.1) and held her finish. This was very close to being a stick. She just flared it out a tad too early. [9.850]
Kailin anchored the rotation with a 9.950. She had bad shoulder angle (.05 for head being behind shoulders), slightly underrotated the vault (.05), stuck it regardless and held the finish. I was shocked she managed to hold her landing, but she did. Her air awareness is remarkable. [9.900]
Victoria Roberts scored a 9.100 (9.20/9.00) on her exhibition front pike half vault. She twisted early on the table (.05), had a low landing (.1), brushed the mat with her right hand (.3), took essentially two steps up (.2) and never held her finish (.05). This was fine considering it was her first time in an atmosphere remotely like this. She’s doing way more than I expected. I have to apologize here because I didn’t even write about her when she committed and now she’s working herself into maybe making lineups as her career progresses.
Overall, this was fine for what vault is. Those issues on the interior need to get cleaned up so they can start sticking. Floor was a disaster by LSU’s standards.
LSU Floor 48.850, Arkansas Beam 48.850 (LSU leads 147.575-147.350)
Olivia Dunne led things off with a 9.700. She flew back on her FTDT (.1), hit her switch leap to low (.05) switch ring, slid back on her double tuck (.05), and was low and cheated the turn (.1 total) on her Ferrari. She had way too much power in this routine, but that’s better than her past routines which didn’t have enough. [9.700]
Chase followed with a 9.825. She had a low chest (.05) and hop forward (.1) out of her full out, hit her wolf jump full, hit her back 1.5 to FLO and hit her switch side to Popa. That full out is not working yet, but it’s getting slightly closer each week. [9.850]
Amari kept momentum going with a 9.875. She hit her DLO, hit her leaps, hopped forward out of her FTDT (.1) and hit her ring jump. I’m getting confused about her routine because this is the first time she’s had that random leap at the end. It was solid execution, but still. [9.900]
Kailin got a 9.150 on a routine where the judges’ start values had a 9.40/9.30 split. She had a low chest (.05) and slide back on her full out (.05), hit her switch ring, rolled her ankle and didn’t do her tour jete half, nailed her back 2.5 to front tuck and hit her split jump. To avoid ruining the flow of this, I’m going to explain why she didn’t start from a 10 at the bottom (find ^ and you’ll see where it starts).
Aleah followed with an uncharacteristic 9.575. She took two medium large steps (.3 total) out of bounds (.1 ND), hit her switch ring to short (.05) tour jete half, lacked control on her “stuck” back 2.5 to front tuck (.05) and hit her final leap. She threw her double Arabian out too late, possibly as a compensation for what she did on vault. [9.500 including 0.1 ND]
Haleigh Bryant anchored the rotation with a 9.875. She nailed her front double front, hits her switch side to cheated (.05) switch full, hit her back aerial and slid back slightly on her FLO to Rudi (.05). This was scored tighter than I expected, though maybe they took for flexed feet for the first time in ever. [9.900]
Leah Miller scored a 9.550 (9.70/9.60; 0.1 ND) on her exhibition routine. She slid back on her double pike (.05), took two steps back (.2) and went out of bounds (.1 ND) on her double tuck, hit her switch side to hit Popa to low (.05) wolf full, and hit her FLO to front full. It’s worth noting this is Leah’s first routine in an arena ever. She’s never even competed at Gym 101 due to injury. This was pretty solid considering she had a very weird landing on the double tuck. [9.600 including 0.1 ND]
Overall, this was bad. LSU’s last sub-49 on floor came at the 2023 Kentucky meet during an absolutely cursed rotation. I don’t know what happened, but it’s got to be a learning experience for the squad. Unfortunately, some of it carried over to beam.
LSU Beam 49.025, Arkansas Floor 49.525 (LSU loses 196.875-196.600)
Sierra Ballard led things off with a 9.800. She had some leg in her BHS LOSO (.05), hit her full turn, appeared to come up short on both leaps (.1 total), wobbled on her kickover front (.05), took a half step back on her RO back double full (.05) and held her finish. It was a solid routine to start. [9.750]
Kylie Coen followed with a 9.650 on a 9.70/9.60 split. She wobbled on her front aerial (.05) to beat jump, took a wobble (.05) and step back (.1) out of her BHS LOSO, did a hit switch leap to short (.05) split jump, lacked releve in her full turn (.05), went off to the side (.05) and hopped forward (.1) on her RO back double full, and held her finish. This looked nervy, and that’s to be expected for her first ever road performance. [9.550]
Kailin finished her night with a 9.850. She nailed her BHS LOSO mount, nailed her BHS LOSO, hit her leap series, hit her front aerial to short (.05) split jump, did a good full turn, hopped forward on her BHS 1.5 (.1) and held her finish. That’s the first time she’s hopped on her dismount, so it’s not a big deal. [9.850]
Konnor all but clinched the outcome with an uncharacteristic 9.575. She hit both her leaps with wobbles (.1), wobbled on her front aerial (.05) to BHS with massive wobble (.3), nailed her full turn, wobbled big on her full aerial (.1), stuck her gainer full and held her finish. That was odd and unfortunate. [9.450]
Haleigh couldn’t do enough to stave off Arkansas with a 9.800 on a 9.75/9.85 split (originally 9.90/9.70). She hit her front aerial to BHS, hit her switch leap to straddle quarter with a wobble (.05), hit her full turn, wobbled on her front toss (.05), hit her split jump, hopped back on her standing punch Rudi (.1) and held her finish. This needed to be immaculate for a chance at a win, but it wasn’t going to matter in the end. [9.800]
Aleah closed things out with a 9.925. She nailed her BHS LO LOSO series, hit her leap series, wobbled slightly in her full turn (.05), nailed her front aerial, stuck her gainer full and held her finish. This was angry in the best way and a good closing routine. [9.950]
Lexi Zeiss scored a 9.600 (9.55/9.65) on her exhibition routine. She hit her double wolf turn, had a big wobble on her front aerial to BHS (.1), appeared to hit her leap series, had a big wobble on her side aerial (.1), stuck her RO back 1.5 and failed to hold her finish (.05). I guarantee I missed her splits because of the atrocious camera angles. Anyway, this was solid, especially because her first wobble coincided with the crowd going nuts for Frankie Price’s score. [9.750]
Overall, this was a very nervy rotation. I think this was inexperience catching up to them on beam, and combined with a surging Arkansas, they cracked.
Overall thoughts
I’ll give this team the breaks they’ve earned. Things were going to be off in this meet. Not only was it the first true road test, but the weather messed up their practice schedule. That’s bound to lead to some weird stuff. The good news is that this happened in January and not in April like some teams last year. Hopefully, this leads to success in the future.
^If you’ve decided to read this, thank you for showing your interest in learning the intricacies of the sport. The following is partially based on information I got from current Illinois men’s gymnastics assistant coach and three-time NCAA All-American on floor Connor McCool. First, she didn’t have enough bonus to even get to a 10.0 SV from the 9.4 she started with because she missed the connection from her switch ring, she only got to 9.9. Second, she didn’t fulfill the special requirement that states her dance series needs to have two connected elements, so she lost .2 from her start value. Third, and finally, she needed to have a minimum of 3 A difficulty skills, 3 B difficulty skills and 2 C difficulty skills. A tour jete half is a B skill, and missing a B skill is another 0.3 from her start value. Therefore, 10-.1-.2-.3=9.4.