Tigers Host First Regional Semi since 2019
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Welcome to the postseason!
The #2 LSU gymnastics team gets a luxury they haven’t had since 2019: a home regional. Today, the Tigers take to the floor in the second Baton Rouge Regional semifinal. At 1:00 today, #7 Stanford, #10 Michigan, North Carolina and Utah State will face off, with the top two teams facing the top two teams to advance out of tonight’s semifinal. The Tigers will be joined by #15 Clemson, Auburn and first round winner Nebraska. The meet will begin at 7:00 with doors to the PMAC opening at 6:00. The large replica of the NCAA championship trophy is outside the building if you want a picture with it. For those unable to attend, the meet will be streamed on ESPN+ with John Roethlisberger and Sam Peszek on play-by-play and with Mary Joe Roehrig as on-site rules analyst, a new thing ESPN’s trying for 2026. Live stats can be found here.
LSU’s history against the other teams
This will be LSU’s first meet ever against Clemson.
LSU is 92-18 all-time against Auburn, 30-4 against them at home, and 22-5 against them in NCAA tournament meets. The two teams last met on the same floor on February 13 when LSU won 198.325-196.825.
LSU is 18-14-1 all-time against Nebraska, 4-1 against them at home, and 14-10 against them in the postseason. The two teams last met in 2023 at the Denver Regional Semifinals at which LSU won 197.375-195.525.
#15 Clemson (196.686 NQS, 10-8 overall (5-8 regular season), ACC Champs) (start on bars)
2025 finishes: 29th overall, 5th at ACCs
Program overview: best finish ever: 29th (’25), 1 ACC title (‘26), 0 individual NCAA titles, 0 nationals appearances, 0 Four on the Floor appearances
Event rankings: #18 on vault [49.097], #14 on bars [49.217], #15 on beam [49.119], #17 on floor [49.261]
Preview: Things have changed in Clemson since the end of the 2025 season. In April of 2025, Clemson fired head coach Amy Smith for cause after learning that she was still being a piece of garbage to her athletes, a thing they’d heard she’d done at previous jobs but decided to ignore. After doing so, they made a brilliant decision: hire Cal co-head coaches Justin and Elizabeth Crandall-Howell. In their first season, the Howells have gotten the Tigers from a play-in team to a seeded team and won the program’s first ACC title by 0.025. By bringing in transfers from Cal, former Cal commits, great assistant coaches and a great culture, the Howells have made this program something worth fearing. The Tigers have scored back-to-back 197s to close the season and have looked solid on each event. They’re in position for the first regional final in program history and have a bright future.
Whom to watch for: Senior Brie Clark became the program’s first All-American after earning WCGA first-team honors on floor. Her 9.945 NQS is eighth in the nation. As mentioned above, she’ll be part of a tight race for the floor spot out of this regional. On other events, Ella Cesario is the team’s only qualifying all-arounder with a 39.385 NQS. The fifth-year senior is tied for the team lead with a 9.875 NQS on bars. The other team leader on bars is quite interesting. Lilly Lippeatt originally committed to LSU, but for reasons that I’m not certain are public, she instead chose to go to Clemson before its first full season. Her 9.875 NQS on bars is solid, too. One last person worth mentioning is Madison Minner, the 2026 ACC vault champion. Minner walked onto Clemson’s first team and learned her competition vault after making the team. She’s a senior with a vault NQS of 9.835.
#17 Auburn (196.498 NQS, 4-19 overall (4-11 regular season), 9th at SECs (dead last)) (start on beam)
2025 finishes: 11th overall, t-7th at SECs (last)
Program overview: best finish ever: 4th (’22), 0 SEC titles, 2 individual NCAA titles (last was Sunisa Lee on BB in ’22), 6 nationals appearances (last in ’22), 2 Super 6 appearances (last in ’15), 1 Four on the Floor appearance (’22)
Event rankings: #14 on vault [49.168], #28 on bars [48.965], #14 on beam [49.158], #20 on floor [49.230]
Preview: Well, it’s certainly Auburn. The only other SEC team in this regional, surprisingly, is the one who is interesting for all the wrong reasons. The Tigers have had a rough season and enter the tournament unseeded for the first time since 2017. A dreadful showing at SECs at which they were a point worse than eighth place saw them flip spots with Kentucky. The issue all year has been consistency. When this team hits, they’re solid enough to earn a 197. When they’re off, they’re scoring a 195.300 like they did at SECs. That would’ve been fourth at MACs, for context. If they can get out of this semifinal, it’ll make up for what’s been a very forgettable season.
Whom to watch for: Paige Zancan’s vault NQS is 9.900, and her double front handspring is one of the rare truly one-of-a-kind vaults in the NCAA. Julianne Huff is the team’s only NQS-eligible all-arounder with a 39.395 NQS. Huff also has the highest single-event NQS of any Auburn gymnast with a 9.905 NQS on floor.
#34 Nebraska (195.561 NQS, 8-19 overall (7-8 regular season), 12th at B1Gs (dead last)) (start on floor)
2025 finishes: 28th overall, 9th at B1Gs
Program overview: best finish ever: 4th (’89, ’00, ’03, ’11), 23 conference titles (12 Big 8, 9 Big 12, 2 Big 10, last in ’13), 5 individual NCAA titles (last was Richelle Simpson in the AA and on floor in ’03), 26 nationals appearances (last in ’18), 12 Super 6 appearances (last in ’18), 0 Four on the Floor appearances
Event rankings: #34 on vault [48.883], #25 on bars [49.014], #34 on beam [48.822], #44 on floor [4.906]
Preview: Well they got here, at least. I was pretty dismissive of Nebraska in my regional preview, and their 195.600-194.475 win over Air Force didn’t make me feel much better. They crushed vault and looked decent on floor and beam, but they had a tough start on bars. This program is capable of much better than it’s been achieving in recent years, and they aren’t much of a threat to do anything in this meet.
Whom to watch for: Molly Peterson qualified as an individual on bars, and Lauren Homecillo qualified as an individual on floor. Had Nebraska lost yesterday, they would’ve rotated with Clemson. Instead, their solid routines will be with their team. Reese Baechle does a Yurchenko Tuck 1.5, a rare vault, and she stuck it yesterday.
#2 LSU (197.920 NQS, 17-5-1 overall (11-3-1 regular season), 3rd at SECs) (start on vault)
LSU is ranked second on vault [49.440], third on bars [49.445], third on beam [49.488] and first on floor [49.543].
Normal is more than sufficient tonight. This team has been cruising in the high 197s, a level that none of the other three have even sniffed. I’m not saying this will be a cakewalk, but it should be a nice start. This meet does have a lot riding on it for individuals, though. As a reminder, all the individual results from the two semifinals are combined to determine who gets themselves a golden ticket to Fort Worth if their team doesn’t go, and that also determines individual titles for record-keeping purposes. I am bringing this up because Kailin Chio needs one more beam title to tie the LSU single-season record.
If LSU has full control of this meet in the final rotation, there’s a decent chance that Lexi Zeiss anchors floor instead of Kaliya Lincoln to keep her fresh. As for the rest of the lineups, they’ll be what they are. All LSU needs are 24 hit routines at their usual level to get out of this meet.
By the way, Maggie Slife is so good and she’s rotating with Auburn. She won every individual title in the opening meet of this regional. I loved watching her yesterday. I will preach the gospel of Maggie Slife until she graduates at this point.
