No. 2 seed, LSU Women’s Gymnastics team won first place at their opening of the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championships Thursday night at the PMAC.

Lexi Zeiss opened the doors for the Tigers on vault scoring, scoring 9.850. From early on, they were in the nine range with Kailin Chio topping it off with 2 perfect 10 scores. Chio is the top performer on vault and beam and was named the SEC Gymnast of the Year. The sophomore has been a key part of the Tigers gymnastics squad and has always been resilient and consistent within her performances. Teammate Konnor McClain compliments Chio’s work ethic.

“We work on consistency every day, but she is the definition of consistency,” McClain told the media.

McClain has also been a key part of the LSU Gymnastics squad. After receiving an All-American Honors in the regular season, McClain has been showing out for the Tigers and received scores in the high nine range on Thursday night. Despite having a rough start to the season, McClain has been able to regain her confidence and compete with resilience and passion. Coach Jay Clark explains how he has seen her grow and an improvement in her performance.

“She made a conscious effort to change her outlook…look at her face right now and look at that smile and that’s when Konnor is at her best,” Clark explained to the media Thursday night.

During the by-week after the SEC season, the gymnasts continued to work hard in preparation for the NCAA Championships. After not being satisfied with their result in the SEC, they knew that they had to take that by-week seriously to be successful in the tournament.

“We took this past week after SEC’s, and we really took that by-week really seriously,” Chio told the media.

As well as the gymnasts, Coach Clark knew that his team had to come in hungry and with an aggressive mindset to compete in the second round of the championship. He stated that the performance Thursday night “exceeded his expectations” but knows that his team can do better and wants his team to perform even better than they did Thursday night and will put on a show for the LSU fans on Saturday.

Regardless of the score, Clark and his team are always looking for improvement to keep advancing throughout this tournament.

The Tigers will compete on Saturday, April 4 at 5 p.m. against No. 7 Stanford, No.10 Michigan and No.15 Clemson.