The numbers say the LSU gymnastics team is right where it was expected to be before the 2023 season began.
“At the start of the season we were ranked sixth and after everything we’ve stayed right there,” LSU coach Jay Clark said.
There’s a lot packed into that word, “everything” for the Tigers.
There were four season-ending injuries, including one in the year’s second meet to senior Kiya Johnson, regarded coming into 2023 as LSU’s top gymnast. There were also long stretches without key contributors like KJ Johnson, Olivia Dunne and Bryce Wilson, plus a brief illness that sidelined rising star Aleah Finnegan.
But here LSU is, the No. 6 seed going into Thursday’s first semifinal in the NCAA Championships at Dickies Arena. Still competing. Still fighting for a chance to advance to Saturday’s final and win the program’s first-ever NCAA gymnastics championship.
Clark, who was part of NCAA championship-winning teams as an assistant at Georgia, called this one of if not his most satisfying seasons in three decades of coaching regardless of the outcome.
“It speaks volumes about the character of our kids and the legacy they want to leave with this program,” Clark said. “They’re fighters.”
LSU competes in Semifinal I at 2 p.m. Thursday with No. 3-seeded Florida, No. 4 California and No. 8 Denver, which hosted and won the regional the Tigers advanced from two weeks ago. The other semifinal is at 8 p.m. featuring No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 2 Utah, No. 5 UCLA and No. 7 Kentucky.
Both semifinals will be televised on ESPN2, with streaming coverage of all four individual events available online via ESPN+.
The top two teams from each semifinal, regardless of how their scores rank against teams from the opposite semifinal, will qualify for the championship meet at 3 p.m. Saturday on ABC.
LSU made it out of the regional and into the program’s 32nd NCAA Championships appearance by the rarest of circumstances.
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