Stood tall and looked strong
LSU finished the SEC regular season with a bang in a 198.325-197.325 win over Alabama. The Tigers moved to 8-3 overall and 5-2 in the conference. Unfortunately, Florida beat Kentucky on Sunday to keep the Tigers from winning a share of the SEC regular season title, but they did not overtake LSU for the top seed in the conference. Despite the early start time, the crowd showed up in droves. This was the second consecutive sellout for LSU and the 10th gymnastics sellout ever.
Haleigh Bryant Named SEC Gymnast of the Week again
What, like it’s hard? Haleigh won SEC Gymnast of the Week for the fifth time this season thanks to a Week 9-high 39.850 all-around score, the second highest in school history. Across her four dual meets against the Tide, she improved her AA score every time (39.600 in 2021, 39.675 in 2022, 39.800 in 2023, 39.850 in 2024). For the second time this season, she won at least a share of 4/5 event titles in one meet (and was .025 on beam away from going 5/5), but this time she won each title outright. A little background research on my end revealed that she tied Rheagan Courville for the second-most vault titles in LSU history, though the meet notes said otherwise due to an error that’s been corrected internally (thank you for reaching out to me, Alyssa, I appreciated the opportunity to help). Her AA title tied her with April Burkholder for 2nd in LSU history. Her next AA title will create a tie with Rheagan Courville for most in LSU history. Also, her floor 10 was the 14th of her career, which puts her into a tie with Utah’s Maile O’Keefe for most among active gymnasts and 11th most all-time. Beth Wymer of Michigan has the 10th most 10s in NCAA history at 16.
It’s preamble time: the links will take you to a thread of every routine from a given rotation, scores in parenthesis reflect my personal judgment of deductions and scores in brackets reflect my overall score of the routine. I will NOT be going skill by skill on each routine, especially beam. If I say acro series, that means stuff like a back handspring (BHS) layout step-out (LOSO), and if I say leap series, that means something like a switch side to Popa on floor or switch leap to switch leap on beam. Yes, I actually remembered to put the links in this time, apologies for last time.
LSU Vault 49.450 (LSU leads 49.450-49.200)
LSU started off with a bit of an off vault rotation. KJ Johnson led things off with a 9.875 on her Yurchenko Full (YF). She hopped back (.1) and held the finishing position for a full second. This was a good start, especially since the hop wasn’t as big as she’s done in the past. [9.850]
Aleah Finnegan followed up with another 9.875 on her Yurchenko 1.5 (Y1.5). She had obvious knees in her layout (.05 for form error, Kathy Johnson Clarke mentioned this on Twitter as something judges should look for) and hopped forward (.1). She held the finishing position for a full second. It was better than last week’s vault, at least. [9.850]
Amari Drayton was next with a 9.725 on her Y1.5. She clearly underrotated it (.1), took two steps back (.2) and failed to hold the finishing position for a full second (.05). This was a classic case of fighting too hard for a stick when overdoing the vault for a hop will get a better score. [9.650]
Chase Brock made her return to the lineup with a YF and scored another 9.875. She hopped back (.1) and failed to hold the finishing position for a full second (.05). This was a safe play that worked out really well. [9.800]
Kiya Johnson scored yet another 9.875 on her Yurchenko Double. She had leg separation in the air (.05) and a slide of each foot over in different directions (.1 total), and she held the finishing position for a full second. This was remarkably close to a stick. [9.850]
Haleigh finished things off with a 9.950 on her front handspring front pike half. She had a smidgen of a slide back (.05) and a balance correction (.05), and she held the finishing position for a full second. This was a little closer to the vault table than she usually does, but it was closer to a clean stick than any other vault she’s done this year. [9.900]
Overall, the team looked a little off, but they found their rhythm soon.
LSU Bars 49.650 (LSU leads 99.100-98.425)
Soon was literally the next rotation, one where they tied the season high. Alexis Jeffrey led things off with a 9.875. She hit her first handstand, bent her arms (.05) in her Maloney, hit her bail handstand, hit her final handstand and stuck her half-in half-out (HIHO) very close to the bar (.1). She held the finishing position for a full second. Here’s what she had to say after the meet on Snapchat. “Almost smashed my shins on the bar [two crying emoji]. I thought I was gonna die fr [two crying laughing emoji].” Nothing further is necessary, but a farther dismount is. [9.850]
Ashley Cowan set a new career high with a 9.925. She hit her first handstand, bent her arms to catch her Ray (.05), nailed her overshoot, was short on her final handstand (.05), nailed her double layout (DLO) and held her finishing position for a full second. This was magnificent. If this is the normal every week, things will be very good. [9.900]
Kiya followed with a 9.900 on a 9.95/9.85 split. She hit her first handstand, bent her arms (.05) in her Maloney, hit her bail handstand, hit her third handstand, hit her final handstand, had some leg separation (.05) in her stuck DLO and held the finishing position for a full second. This was about as good as it gets, though the leg separation was weird. [9.900]
Konnor McClain was next with a 9.900. She hit her first handstand, bent her arms (.05) to catch her Church, had leg separation (.05) and poor form (.05) in her Pak, failed to hit a handstand (.05) in her low-bar half turn, hit her final handstand, and took a stutter step with her left foot (.05) to the side and a step forward (.1) with her right foot on her HIHO landing. She held the finishing position for a full second. I hate to say it, but this was probably her worst routine on the bars all season when you exclude her fall (but include everything before and after). [9.650]
Tori Tatum made her return to the lineup and set a new career high with a 9.950 on a 10.0/9.90 split. She hit her first handstand, nailed her Ray to Pak with leg separation (.05), cheated the low-bar half turn (.05) and never hit a handstand (.05), hit her final handstand, took a stutter step to the side (.05) on her HIHO, and never held the finishing position (.05). She did better routines last year, but that half turn has been a bit of an issue before. Still, it was really nice to see her get the chance to go this late in place of the resting Savannah Schoenherr. [9.750]
Haleigh finished the rotation with a 9.975. The only deduction I noticed were bent arms (.05) in her Jaeger catch, though I know she sometimes gets hit for flexed feet in her double front half. Either way, this was tremendous bars work. [9.950]
Overall, this might have been the second-best bars rotation of the season behind the still unbelievable masterclass at the Maverik Center. This was the first LSU bars rotations with all five counting scores being at least 9.900 since 2/18/18 (credit to Drew Porche for that one).
LSU Beam 49.450 (LSU leads 148.550-147.825)
Once again, bobbles hurt this rotation more than anything, and I say “once again” because it’s been a common problem all year. Sierra Ballard led off with a 9.825. She had a little bit of leg form issue in her acro series (.05), hit a great full turn, did a short sissonne (.05) to hit switch half, nailed her kickover front, swung her arms to keep her balance (.05) on her stuck roundoff (RO) back 1.5, managed to hold the finishing position for a full second, and stepped back to salute (.05 because it’s clear she absolutely had to do it since she hadn’t stuck her landing cleanly). This was pretty good, and it was incredible to see her fight to keep from stepping back and losing more points on the landing.
Alexis followed with a 9.900 on a 9.95/9.85 split. She nailed her wolf turn, had obvious flexed feet (.05) in her hit cat leap to switch side, nailed her acro series, was just a bit too low on her standing front (.05), stuck her RO back 1.5 and failed to hold the finishing position for a full second (.05). If you haven’t noticed before, go look at the clap in her choreography because it always comes with a big cloud of chalk and looks beautiful. I love this routine so much because she performs it with steadiness. [9.850]
Konnor came up and got the scoring misfortune of a 9.875 on a 9.95/9.80 split. She nailed her leap series, hit her acro series, nailed her wolf jump, nailed her full turn, checked (.05) on her side aerial, stuck her gainer full and held the finishing position for a full second. Put the score aside for a second because this was fantastic. [9.950]
Kiya followed with another 9.875. She dropped her shoulder on her full turn (.05), hit her acro series, hit her leap series, had a slight check on her front toss (.05), stuck her RO back double full with a slight balance correction (.05) and held the finishing position for a full second. This was awesome to see. [9.850]
Haleigh brought the team back into the 9.9s with a 9.925. She hit her acro series, nailed her leap series, hit her full turn, dropped her shoulder and moved her leg to keep her balance on her standing front (.1), hit her split jump, stuck her standing punch Rudi and held the finishing position for a full second. It’s that blasted standing front again. [9.900]
Aleah finished things off with a 9.875. She nailed her acro series, hit her leap series, hit her full turn, had her back foot come off the beam (.1) on her front aerial, stuck her gainer full and held the finishing position for a full second. I’m shocked that it came so close to being perfect, yet the thing that prevented the perfect score was a skill she can do in her sleep. [9.900]
Overall, this was unpolished, but they came in areas that have been polished before and can be polished again. Head coach Jay Clark mentioned that single acro skills like Haleigh’s standing front and Aleah’s front aerial were areas they really needed to fix up for the next meet.
LSU Floor 49.775 (LSU leads 198.325-197.325)
Imagine not tying the school record on floor in back-to-back weeks. Couldn’t be them. Konnor led things off with a 9.925. She slid back on her DLO (.05), hit her switch jump to cheated (.05) switch half and stepped across her body (.05, it wasn’t a step in the direction of the tumbling, but it wasn’t as bad as a step in the opposite direction of her tumbling) on her back 1.5 to front layout (FLO). This was very dynamic and great as a lead-off routine. [9.850]
Amari followed up with a 9.925 of her own. She slid and lacked other control on her DLO (.1), had a low chest (.05) on her stuck front through to double tuck, hit her wolf turn, and nailed her leaps. She landed her DLO in a really odd way that had me worried she was going to fly out of bounds, but she did a great job correcting herself quickly. [9.850]
KJ set a new career high with a 9.975, giving her the second 10 from a judge in the last two meets. There were two places where I noted deductions, a cheated turn on her Popa (.05) and a slight slide back on her double tuck (.05). This wasn’t as good as her routine at Florida, but it was very close. [9.900]
Aleah saw her 10.0 streak end with a 9.950 on a 10.0/9.90 split. She hit basically everything, but she had to take a step across her body (.05) on her back 2.5 to front tuck to avoid going out of bounds. That skill stayed in bounds by mere inches and showed how unbelievably gifted she is as a gymnast. [9.950]
Haleigh finished her incredible night with a 10.0. There was one thing I think could’ve been worth deducting for, and that was for when she cheated the turn on her switch full (.05). Everything else was as good as it gets, though. [9.950]
Sierra subbed in for Kiya at the end with the meet at hand and scored a 9.900 on a 9.95/9.85 split, a score that they had to drop. She nailed her DLO, tucked the end of her back 1.5 to FLO (.05, I can’t tell you what to deduct, but I can’t justify it not having something), hit her switch ring, came up very short on her switch half (.2) and annihilated her double pike. There were two very odd mistakes in this routine, but maybe that was the result of a bit of rust. [9.750]
Overall, this was utterly ridiculous. This kind of floor consistency is what other teams would kill to have, and it shows why being the top seed at SECs is so crucial to LSU’s chances of winning.
Overall thoughts
LSU looked as good as expected in this meet. It was a continuation of the success they’ve had at home all season. Vault needs to look a lot better, and it’s very concerning that they stuck more vaults at Florida than they did at home. The early start time can’t be an excuse for poor performance when that could happen in the tournament, too. Now is the time for things to get into the form needed to win championships.