LSU gymnastics competed in Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday night, where it found a top-two finish in Session 1 to make it through to the Final Four competition.
Now past the Elite Eight round, but it wasn’t without a hard-fought fight that left the Tigers sliding through by the skin of their teeth in the final rotation.
“We survived, and we know that,” head coach Jay Clark said. “We know we weren’t our best. There’s no real reason to have that conversation. What I want for them is to be physically rested and mentally rested and feel confident. They’re a good team.”
LSU was the nations’ No. 1 team on floor for a reason
One of the biggest takeaways from the Tigers’ semifinal performance was just how deserving the team still is of its regular-season No. 1 ranking on the floor exercise.
In the beam rotation before, wobbles and missed connections from over half of the lineup had knocked the team into third place, with just the floor exercise left to make up for it.
In a situation that seemed to be the 11th hour for LSU, the final rotation proved they’re called the “Fighting Tigers.” Up against the motivated Georgia Gymdogs, who took to the vault table for their final event, LSU showed up across the board in every competition of its floor routines.
After senior Emily Innes set the tone for the rest of the roster, it was the energy of Nina Ballou and Kylie Coen that set up the last half of the lineup to go above 9.900 for the rest of the rotation, truly harnessing the momentum when it mattered most.
“I just went up there and did my routine,” sophomore Kailin Chio said. “Did it for the girls. I knew how much I wanted it, how much these girls wanted it, and how much work you put in the gym. Just seeing it all pay off was really nice.”
LSU’s dismounts on uneven bars made for a shaky rotation
Another factor from the Tigers’ qualification that could have a much greater effect during Saturday’s final was the performances seen during the night’s second rotation: the uneven bars.
To be more specific, the routines that the Tigers competed in were consistent with what fans have seen almost all year. The dismounts, however, were what killed the potential score that could have given the No. 2 team the competitive edge it needed headed into beam.
“The rest of the team, their bar teams were good,” junior Konnor McClain joked. “If you watch them, they were really good, but you just have to stick the dismount.”
With only one dismount stuck out of the six routines that were competed, the Tigers could have been in a much better position in the night’s standings, with an extra cushion to battle the mistakes seen on beam.
Even more so, the only stick of the night came from McClain, who has been battling a minor elbow injury since her fall in the regional final.
This result leaves 2025’s semifinal upset in the past
If LSU can reel in its losses come Saturday and return to what’s considered to be its “normal,” then the team will be in a much better position to fight for the title in the championship final.
With all of this being said, the narrative becomes clear that the Tigers were facing the pressure of the preceding year’s semifinal appearance.
“A lot of it was trying to get back over the hump in the back of [their] mind,” Clark said. “It’s hard to tune out the rear view mirror sometimes.”
The mental impact of facing the same upset that last year’s defending national champions did was evidently hanging over the team on almost every event.
While it may not have been completely obvious, there is no denying that the idea was present in the back of the team’s mind.
Now, after having seemed to prove their worth with a top-two Elite Eight finish, the Tigers have reason to head into Saturday with higher confidence and steadier mentalities.
“Hopefully that sense of relief is there, and they can put that behind them,” Clark said. “My prayer for them every time we walk out there is not necessarily that we win. We don’t want to have any regrets. It’s about them competing at or near the best of their ability.”
