NCAA Gymnastics season is officially over, and a new reigning champion, the Oklahoma Sooners, has been crowned. Congrats to KJ Kindler & Co., as they were the best team on the day. How do we know that? Oh, maybe because they were the only team of the four competing who had every routine shown?
Before we get to the Mizzou all of it all, which is why you are here, let’s give a moment for who I’d like to call America’s Team, the Minnesota Golden Gophers, who came into the postseason a true underdog, ranked no. 13 in RTN standings with no single apparatus ranked inside the top 10 (#12 beam, #14 floor, #15 vault, #17 bars), and the lowest ranked team to make it to the national championship finals since 2014. How did ABC/ESPN prepare for this momentous occasion? Just how they did for Mizzou last year, you guys! With erasure from the broadcast!!! [she says sarcastically… and truthfully]. But seriously, college gymnastics watchers knew the potential was there for greatness, having finished the season as a top 10 team four times since 2020. Mizzou, conversely, has done this twice in that same timeframe (no. 3 in 2025 and no. 5 in 2022).
The Golden Gophers remind me a lot of the Tigers, and they definitely made a fan of me. One— the state of Minnesota has been through A LOT and I want nothing but the best for them, and two— they are just a super fun team to root for, from their A-plus social media game to the magnetic performances from athletes like freshmen Arianna Ostrum, Lacey Saltzmann and Emma Slevin, who hails from Ireland. And lest you forget, former Gopher gymnast-turned assistant coach Mya Hooton was an honorary Tiger last year when she rotated with them at the national semis.
This Minnesota team showed some inconsistencies this season, scoring an unfathomable 195.075 on the road at Nebraska on January 24 to go along with a 195.475 in the opener and five 196 scores (Mizzou had 4). But this same team also knocked off preseason darling Arkansas at home on January 10 —apparently something Gymbacks head coach Jordyn Wieber forgot about when she failed to mention the Gophers as competition in her press conference — and had multiple high 197 scores in March, including a 197.700 on March 1 and a 197.825 in their final regular season meet of the season on March 15. Both of those scores, by the way, were higher than anything Mizzou was able to put together this season, so yes, whether or not you realized it, Minnesota is a very good team. After a third place finish and a bit of a balance beam situation at the Big 10 Championships, Minny was placed in the Corvallis, Oregon regional, or what I’d fondly call the Region of Death. With a 196.975, the Gophers came from behind after a subpar first two rotations to overtake Iowa in the waning moments to advance to the Regional Finals, then had to hold off Utah, who had NEVER MISSED A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP APPEARANCE IN 49 YEARS, no. 4 UCLA, and no. 5 Alabama to get to the national championships. Like I said, the Region of Death.
Minnesota put together their third highest score of the season, a 197.625, and beat out Utah, who finished in third and just 0.125 behind them, as well as Alabama, who was in a distant fourth with a 197.175 to reach the national semifinals. My gym travel partner, Ben Hartong, and I watched this meet on my iPad on the way back to CoMo from Lexington — well, I watched and narrated and he drove — and the Golden Gophers shined, earning top three finishes from freshman Arianna Ostrum (VLT— 9.95, 1st/ FX— 9.95, 2nd), junior Jordan Lyden (UB— 9.95, 1st / BB— 9.95, 1st / FX— 9.925, 3rd), and senior Brooklyn Rowray (BB- 9.925, 2nd).
It was IMPRESSIVE, and just like we all predicted, eh?
They, like Mizzou the year before, earned their first ever Four on the Floor bid on Friday evening with a 197.4625, beating out a UCLA (197.275) team that many thought could win the whole damn thing, the same way that our fair Tigers (197.300) beat out Florida (197.200) last year. It was an electric performance by the Gophers, earning the second highest scores of the session behind OU on bars (49.3875), their weakest apparatus this season and beam (49.3875). Again, just like we all predicted.
The similarities don’t end there. The Golden Gophers also crowned an individual national champion in senior Brooklyn Rowray, who scored a 9.9625 on beam to take the victory single-handedly. Mizzou’s Helen Hu did the same thing a year before, on the same apparatus, earning a 9.9875. #Memories
On Sunday, Minnesota’s season came to an end with a fourth place finish and super solid 197.375, and had they gotten a bit more favorable scoring— how exactly does one beam judge score Brooklyn Rowray a 10 and another a 9.85, exactly? — it could have been even closer (Florida finished third with a 197.6875). Alas, the Gophers have made a fan outta me, and I’m sure between this performance and their practice facility facelift, it’ll do wonders for their recruiting, and I’m looking forward to watching them next season.
Hannah Horton, Take a Bow
Mizzou’s final competitor in 2026 was none other than junior Hannah Horton, who won a whopping 19 event titles for the Tigers this season. H2 rotated with Arkansas at the national semifinals on Friday evening, and did a phenomenal job on bars, earning a 9.8875 (4x 9.90, 1x 9.85, 1x 9.80) and an overall 16th place finish out of total 56 competitors spread out among two semifinals.
Gymnastics superstar writer (and my friend) Nate Salsman was on site in Fort Worth for Inside Gymnastics and was able to grab a quote. “She wants to do the work. She knows that that wasn’t maybe her strongest event coming in, but she loves bars and she loves the challenge,” bars coach Whitney Snowden told him.
When asked about expectation for her senior season, she said, “Hannah can do anything she puts her mind to. We’re on 10.0 watch on multiple events.”
Up Next
Per the aforementioned Nate (the Great), Shannon Welker and Whitney Snowden told him to keep an eye on the portal, so that’s exactly what we will do, and the team put out this terrific video from two of its All-American transfers to talk about their experiences at The Zou.
Side Note: Keep your eyes peeled for something really special from me and an unspecified Tiger gymnast in the next week or two.
The Tigers have some vacancies available for the next great portal additions. If Makayla and Addi have, in fact, wrapped up their respective gymnastics careers — they both have a year of eligibility remaining — that leaves three holes to fill as the roster limit is set at 21.
Let’s review where we stand.
We also, of course, will also be keeping a close eye on the future, as a trio of baby Tigers in the nation’s no. 6 recruiting class earned regional titles at meets around the country last weekend, including Raegan McCarty, who won a floor title in her Region 5 meet with a 9.775, Dakota (Coco) Haynes, who won a Region 6 bars title with a 9.750, and Imani White, who won a Region 8 beam title with an astonishing 9.90 (watch the routine at the link).
Imani also earned a 9.875 on vault with her Yurchenko 1.5 (which looks an awful lot like a 10 in NCAA), a 9.825 on bars and a 38.925 in the all-around. Raegan earned a 9.675 on vault.
For their performance, the trio earned a trip to Level 10 DP Nationals, which will take place May 6-10 in Oklahoma City, alongside teammate Kendall Morgan, who finished fourth in the all-around and second on both vault (9.725) and beam (9.575) in her session of the Region 8 meet.
Per assistant coach Jackie Terpak, the top seven finishers in each age group earn spots at DP Nationals, so the Tigers will be well-represented in OKC in a few weeks and I’m sure we’ll have plenty of results and videos to share.
“I actually, I think every event we have is going to get stronger next year,” Shannon told us after the Regional Final. “I know we’re losing a couple of routines here and there, but what we’re going to develop along with what’s walking in the door, I think people are going to be really impressed with. If they like this year and last year, I think next year is going to be pretty impressive.”
