It wasn’t meant to be, after all.
The #2 LSU gymnastics team finished their season as national runners-up once again. The Tigers put up a solid 198.0750, but Oklahoma’s 198.1625 was enough to win them their eighth national championship. LSU beat Florida’s 197.6875 to give them their third straight season with a better finish than the Gators, and they beat Minnesota’s 197.3750.
This isn’t going to be like the other recaps I’ve done this season. I am writing this after midnight on the day this is coming
out because I haven’t been able to think of how to make this work until now. The main thing that’s worth looking at is how LSU managed to let this meet slip through their grasp. Don’t get me wrong, LSU has a lot to be proud of after their performance in this meet. That said, LSU had a lead going into the final rotation and ended up losing, and that still sucks.
What made this meet winnable:
Oklahoma opened some doors for LSU thanks to poor performances on bars and beam compared to their standard. Combine that with Florida throwing the meet on beam and vault, and you get a situation that helps LSU tremendously. LSU had several great routines that helped them contend, too. Amari, Kailin and Kaliya delivered tremendous floor routines that kept LSU within a tenth of OU. Kailin’s 10 in the next rotation saved LSU from issues I’ll address later. The entire bars team went lights out and drilled landings they couldn’t get on Thursday. Kylie Coen’s lead-off beam routine also put LSU in a great position to win this meet.
What kept LSU from winning:
I don’t think LSU was going to get the win if Kailin had stuck her beam dismount. I want to address this point first. Yes, Kailin got a 9.9000 after stepping on her dismount, but that was a “let’s go for drinks” score from judges who knew they weren’t about to worry about doing work the rest of the day. I’ll point to a couple of major problems that were clear. First, LSU didn’t get a stick or even a 9.9 from anyone on vault outside of Kailin. I won’t name names because that doesn’t matter, but someone doing a 10.0 vault needed to find themselves a stick.
Second, beam needed a bit more stability. This one has layers because there’s two things that I would’ve wanted to see done differently. First, what hack judge threw a 9.75 for Kylie’s beam score? That stupid little mishap iced out Lexi Zeiss and only made things worse for her. Second, Lexi was having trouble on her acro series the entire week from podium training to touch warm-ups. I understand trusting her because of what she’s done all year, but there comes a time when someone needs to be pulled out when they’re struggling all the dang time. Madison Ulrich warmed up quite well in Kaliya’s spot, a thing which happened because there were serious concerns about if Kaliya would even compete, and would’ve been a perfect replacement for Lexi in that situation. She’s also very consistent, but she had the bonus of not having any issues in training. If she hits, that probably calms Kaliya down enough to hit a slightly better routine and maybe takes enough pressure off Kailin for her to stick. That said, I want to be realistic: we don’t know if that would’ve happened.
Wrap-up:
What an incredible season. This may not have been a big year for awards, though Kailin’s got a very big one coming her way soon, but it was a big year for grit, toughness and determination. For the first time in a long time, a team pushed Oklahoma in a national final and almost got the job done. In 2021, Michigan had a more comfortable lead over the Sooners, and 2018 UCLA got a shocking beam 10 to steal the title as the trophy was being walked down to OU. So many of these people showed up all season. Beyond Kailin, you had Lexi emerge as a strong leader with her routines and her words. Kaliya figured out how to control her 1.5 and has remained as strong as ever on floor. Nina Ballou emerged as an early vocal leader. Kylie stepped up as the beam lead and did so incredibly well.
The best part of all is that most of this team comes back next season. The only competitive routines that are leaving are Courtney Blackson’s bars, Ashley Cowan’s bars and Emily Innes’ floor. LSU’s already bringing in a senior replacement in fifth-year Penn transfer Skye Kerico, and it’ll be interesting to see who else steps up. This team was such a joy to watch compete and grow, and I’ll cherish many of the memories of this season for a long time.
Stats:
We ain’t going out on that sappy stuff, though. There are still some stats I want to get to starting with individual title stuff. Konnor shared this meet’s titles on bars and beam. She now has 13 career bars titles, tied for 10th in LSU history, eight career beam titles, and 21 career individual event titles.
Kailin gets her own paragraph, of course. Kailin recorded the first 10 on vault at NCAAs in LSU history to win the vault title. She now has 19 career vault titles, tied for 10th in LSU history, and 64 overall titles. That was her 13th vault title of 2026, which makes her stand alone with a new LSU record, and it was her 41st title of 2026. Kailin is now tied for 15th in NCAA history in career 10s with Jeanette Antolin and Theresa Kulikowski. She finishes 2026 with 13 10s and 11 scores below 9.9 across 62 routines. Hello, Honda Award.
