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Hopefully this meet isn’t as bumpy as my drive up.
The back-to-back SEC champion #2 LSU gymnastics team is back on the road for the third time in the team’s first four weeks of competition. The Tigers sit at 3-1-1 and 1-1 in SEC play after opening their home slate with a 198.050-195.775 win over Kentucky. Tonight, they’ll be facing the #7 Missouri Tigers in Columbia, but this won’t be like any meet LSU’s had in Columbia before. Mizzou has moved their meets to Mizzou Arena, the newer basketball arena with a larger seating capacity, and you’ll be able to notice an immediate difference in how things look when compared to Hearnes. The meet begins at 6:45 p.m., and for those who weren’t insane enough to drive up here, you can watch the meet on SECN with Alex Perlman and Anastasia Webb on the call. Live stats can be found here.
LSU’s match-up history with Missouri
LSU is 51-10 all-time against Missouri and is 10-6 on the road. The last time these teams met on the same floor was at the 2025 SEC Championship when LSU won 198.200-197.400. LSU has lost to Mizzou the last two times they faced them in Columbia, but this will be a different environment than that 2024 meet. The most notable difference is the location of the beam. In the Hearnes Center, the beam is right next to the stands, but in Mizzou Arena, the beam is a decent distance from the stands.
About #7 Missouri
2025 was the best season in Mizzou gymnastics history. The Tigers finished fourth at SECs, tied for their best finish ever, after making the evening session for the first time. They then went on a tournament run that ended with a third-place finish after upsetting Florida in the semis and Utah in the finals. This year is about continuing to maintain new heights.
The Tigers lost 11 of their 25 NQS routines (7 beam NQS scores): Helen Hu and Abby Mueller on beam, Mara Titarsolej and Kyra Burns on bars, Jocelyn Moore on vault, bars and floor, and Amari Celestine in the all-around. They also lost two underclassmen who didn’t compete in 2025. Shannon Welker has used the transfer portal extensively in the years it’s existed, and he used it again to add three people: fifth-year senior Makayla Green from Illinois, fifth-year senior Sara Wabi from Illinois State, and junior Dakota Essenpries from Arkansas. Mizzou also added four freshmen with the biggest name being five-star Kimarra Echols. Missouri has never been a program that’s had a star all-arounder. In fact, they’ve never had an SEC Gymnast of the Week winner. Instead, they stack the roster with star specialists, and the biggest standout so far has been Addison Lawrence, a beam superstar who has scored 9.950 in three of the team’s first four meets.
Missouri enters at 4-2 and 0-2 in SEC competition. Their most recent meet was a 197.500-197.225 loss at Alabama. An odd thing is that their two sub 197 scores came in home meets while their two 197+ scores came in road meets. They haven’t had much of an outlier meet in either a positive or negative direction so far this season, so they’ll be looking for a big score tonight. The Tigers are ranked fifth on vault [49.250], 12th on bars [49.188], ninth on beam [49.231] and second on floor [49.400]. Missouri is led by Shannon Welker in his 13th year at the helm. He is assisted by associate head coach Whitney Snowden, in her fourth season, and assistant coaches Lacey Rubin and Jackie Terpak, each of whom are in their third season.
About #2 LSU
Kailin Chio earned SEC Gymnast of the Week honors for the second time this season. Her 39.775 all-around score set a new season high, but Jordan Chiles broke that with a 39.875 on Sunday. Kailin has won an SEC weekly award in 11 of the 14 weeks in which she has been eligible for an award.
LSU is ranked ninth on vault [49.217], second on bars [49.492], second on beam [49.483] and 11th on floor [49.275].
LSU hasn’t found their consistency yet this season. They’ve had a 197, a 196 and a 198. #25 Maryland is the only other top-25 team that hasn’t repeated the number before the decimal in any of their three scores (195, 194, 196). The area that’s been most inconsistent in the early part of this season has been landings, especially on bars and vault. If LSU is going to earn a solid road score, they’ll need to channel what gave them strength on the final three events against Kentucky and fix some issues on vault. That said, two of the vaults last week were meant as a long-term play to get Konnor McClain and Kaliya Lincoln ready for competitive Yurchenko Double Fulls.
The only injury update that came from head coach Jay Clark’s press conference this week was that Chase Brock is still trying to come back from her Achilles tear. She’s been dealing with ankle discomfort that he attributed partially to natural wear from a long gymnastics career.
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