The No. 1 seeded team in the NCAA Championships, LSU, unexpectedly fell in the national semifinal round last weekend, knocking them out of the line for the 2025 championship title.
In a preview of the competition, two-time Olympian John Roethlisberger proposed that both the Tigers and the Oklahoma Sooners were the favorites in the lineup, stating that the two teams have given championship performances the highest percentage of times this year.
“If you’re going to roll the dice 10 times, they’re going to put up a championship performance eight or nine out of 10 times,” Roethlisberger said in response to how open the competition truly was. “And I think that is a higher percentage than anybody else.”
The 1990 National All-Around Champion’s proposal proved to be true despite not being in LSU’s favor, with Oklahoma being named this year’s national champions with a 198.0125 victory.
The Sooners competed against UCLA (197.6125), Utah (197.2375) and Missouri (197.2500). It was Missouri’s first women’s gymnastics national championship appearance ever.
While Tiger fans were shocked to see that LSU would not be continuing to the Final Four, they were not surprised to learn that all-around freshman Kailin Chio was named the 2025 NCAA Vault Champion after sticking a 9.9750 on the event, which proved to be the highest score across all four rotations for LSU Thursday night.
So where did LSU go wrong?
Well, with it being the national championships, the standards were higher in every way from intricate scoring to star-worthy performances, ones that LSU seemed to fall short on.
The Tigers led off with all-around freshman Lexi Zeiss on the uneven bars, scoring a 9.900, however, the numbers only went down in that rotation from there.
Whether it was a hop on a landing or another deduction taken at the judges’ discretion, LSU found itself in third place at the start of the meet – and while it didn’t know it yet – that’s where it would finish.
All-around senior Aleah Finnegan mounted beam for the second rotation. In an attempt to deliver a championship-worthy performance, the gymnast momentarily lost center on the balance beam. While she didn’t fall midst routine, losing her balance was likely the major deduction that led her to earn a 9.2250, the lowest score the Olympian received on the event this year.
It seemed that the nerves from the team’s shaky start stuck with them as they failed to earn more than a 9.975 across the competition.
However, it’s important to note that gymnastics is not all about the scoring.
Sure, that’s how we determine rankings and, of course, national championship winning teams, but the biggest thing fans can take away from this season is that the performance is worth more than the score, something LSU head coach Jay Clark prides himself and his team on.
“We try our best not to even talk about scores. It’s really just about focusing on the performance quality that we have,” Clark said after LSU’s SEC Championship victory. “You can’t control what judges do and what they think they see. So I don’t let that get in our heads at all.”
Unfortunately for LSU, it fell just short of a championship worthy performance.
What started out as an ‘off-day’ for the Tigers led them to become the No. 5 in the country, costing them the advancement to the Final Four, and the 2025 championship victory.
What made the loss so much more heartbreaking was the amount of seniors likely ending their collegiate careers on this note. Alyona Shchennikova, Haleigh Bryant, Olivia Dunne, Sierra Ballard, Chase Brock, Tori Tatum, Kathryn Weilbacher, Alexis Jeffrey, KJ Johnson and Aleah Finnegan all may have seen their last college meet.
However strong the program, losing that talented of a class is sure to make a return to championship contention a challenge.
