I am not emotionally ready.
The back-to-back SEC champion #2 LSU gymnastics team closes out the regular season tonight. The Tigers are coming off their highest true road score in program history in a 198.450-198.325 loss at Florida. Now they come home for the last time in the regular season to host #7 Arkansas. The meet begins at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:00, and the first 1000 fans will receive a special senior night t-shirt. The senior night festivities will start after the meet concludes, so stick
around for that. For those who can’t make it, the meet will be streamed on SECN+ with Lyn Rollins and Kaleigh Dickson Abboud on the call. Live scores can be found here.
Note: Road To Nationals hasn’t calculated Missouri’s ranking correctly. Under the new NQS, only a team’s five lowest home meets are factored in, and Mizzou’s had six. When accounting for this, Arkansas and Mizzou flip spots.
LSU’s match-up history with Arkansas
LSU is 49-7-1 all-time against Arkansas and is 10-1 at home. The last time the two teams met on the same floor was at the 2025 Pennsylvania Regional Final in which LSU won 198.050-197.375.
About #7 Arkansas
Arkansas failed to qualify for SECs in 2025 because they were ranked ninth among SEC teams entering the meet. They finished the year #12 overall. The Razorbacks lost nine NQS routines from 2025 to graduation and one to the portal: Kaitlyn Ewald on vault, Dakota Essenpries (portal) on vault, Kalyxta Gamiao on beam and floor, and Maddie Jones and Mati Waligora on bars, beam and floor. The Hogs added two transfers for this season: sophomore Madison Gustitus from San Jose State and senior Morgan Price from Fisk. They also added six freshmen with the most notable being #3 overall recruit Allison Cucci.
The Razorbacks are 5-6-1 overall and 2-4-1 in SEC play. Their most recent meet was a 197.925-197.500 loss at home to Oklahoma in which they set a new SEC single-meet attendance record of 15,512. Arkansas has been steady with their scores this season outside of a 195.975 at Florida. They typically score in the low to mid 197s, so they’ll need to find another gear if they want to solidify their shot at a trip back to Fort Worth. Their season high is a 197.700 scored at Metroplex on February 8, and their second best is the 197.500 mentioned above. Joscelyn Roberson is still a superstar like she was as a freshman. Her beam and floor routines are superb, and she may exhibition a Mustafina vault. That’s the hardest vault anyone’s ever done in NCAA history. Morgan Price, someone I covered when she won all five WCGNIC individual championships for Fisk in 2025, scored the first 10 in Arkansas history against Kentucky. She has a gorgeous Yurchenko 1.5.
Arkansas is ranked fifth on vault [49.309], 13th on bars [49.225], tied for sixth with Minnesota on beam [49.303] and ninth on floor [49.375]. The Razorbacks are led by head coach Jordyn Wieber in her seventh year. She is assisted by assistant coaches Chris Brooks, in his seventh year, Kyla Ross, in her fifth year, and Catelyn Branson, in her second year back.
About #2 LSU
Kaliya Lincoln was named this week’s SEC Specialist of the Week. On Sunday, she scored two 9.975s and a 9.950 and had her best meet as a Tiger. She’s the first LSU gymnast to win the award outright since Konnor McClain did so in Week 2 of 2024.
LSU is ranked second on vault [49.428], tied for third with Oklahoma on bars [49.450], third on beam [49.488] and first on floor [49.525].
This meet will have some exhibition routines since it’s not on TV. There’s a very good chance that Tori Tatum will do a bars exhibition since it’s her second senior night, and it’ll be interesting to see what else happens on that front. LSU is competing on a short week and gets fewer practices, but they can’t let that affect them. This team has found their level, but tonight is a night built to mess with it. If they do their normal, it says even more great things about this team.
On the NQS front, LSU can’t drop below #2, but they can get to the top spot if Oklahoma has a bad meet at Michigan. Rumors had been circling of Oklahoma potentially dropping out of that meet because of mass illness, but they made it up to Ann Arbor. For Arkansas, they can’t climb higher than their current ranking, but they can fall to as far as #12 if they do poorly.
Senior night is always emotional, though this year comes with the guarantee of at least one more meet in the PMAC afterward. Chase Brock is on her third senior night, and what the heck do you say for someone’s third senior night? Tori Tatum, Alexis Jeffrey and Kathryn Weilbacher are each having their second senior night at LSU. Courtney Blackson is having her second senior night, too, though her first was at Boise State. Emily Innes is having her first senior night, but she spent her first three years at Washington.
I don’t want to get too sentimental, but Ashley Cowan is the only senior left from the first freshman class I covered professionally. A 2024 SEC bars champion, Ashley has been a bright light on this team since she worked her way into the bars lineup late into her first season. She’s also done a ton of work off the floor as vice president of LSU’s SAAC and through her internships as she works to be a paramedic.
LSU needs just 7,283 fans in attendance to have the highest average attendance in the NCAA for the third consecutive year. Utah was the king of NCAA attendance, but something’s gone wrong there to the chagrin of many Utah fans. If tonight’s attendance is at least 13,369, this will be LSU’s second-best attended season on average. It’s the biggest show in town and the finale of another great year of Friday Night Heights.
