Fort Worth, Texas – Eight teams competed Semifinals of NCAA gymnastics On Thursday at the Dickies Arena with the opportunity to advance to the Saturday final.
After a day, which included the stunning disturbance of the defending LSU champion, four teams remain. And now the scene is ready for a convincing end to the 2025 season with permanent popular Oklahoma, the historic powerhouses Utah and UCLA and the first finalist in Missouri.
LSU, Champions 2024 Those who finished regular season ranked first and won the title of SEC last month, was amazed in the daily session attacked and was the best in second place by 0.2125 points. The team looked destroyed when the final scores were flashing on the screens and sealing their fate. The tigers were 0.2375 points for Utah, the winner of the meeting.
“Today’s competition was absolutely everything you can hope for the National Championship,” said Janelle McDonald’s head coach. “It was so neck and neck and just a struggle for each individual event and each individual routine. It was an incredible meeting that was part of.”
Florida, which completed regular season, was also sent home early when Gators finished third during the first meeting.
Jordan Bowers of Oklahoma won the title All-Around with 39,7125, closely defeated by Utah’s Grace McCallum, colleague formerly Faith Torrez and Oregon State’s Jade Carey.
Who else was amazed on Thursday? And who else took home titles of events? In case you missed some action, we got you covered.
Return Soors
Oklahoma Sooners knew that all eyes were entering them into the first Thursday semifinals for a good reason. During last year’s semifinals the team arrived and wanted to win their third direct NCAA team and as popular to do it.
After the team recorded three significant landing errors during the first rotation on the vault, the Sooners dreams were interrupted and got one of the most shocking disturbances in the last memory. Since then, head coach KJ Kindler said he had 364 long days to think about what had happened and was bombarded with the vision of the competition shots over and over again.
He is an irony, and perhaps poetic, Sooners had to complete the Thursday meeting on the vault, but Torrez and Bowers-DVA versatile teams who both fought for the event last year on reporters that they did not allow them.
And this strategy worked. Nobody fell at the event and Oklahoma recorded the best session of 49,2750 on the vault to connect the first semifinals with 197,500. Bowers, senior and anchor at the event had a team of 9.8875, the second highest score in the first semifinals.
Bowers and Torrez also scored 9.95 seconds on their floor – good enough to second place – to raise the team and continue searching for the seventh national championship.
Jordan. Bowers. 9.95. pic.twitter.com/gagryiweex
– Women’s gym Oklahoma (@ou_wgymnastics) 17th April 2025
Kindler could not help, but last Thursday after the meeting dealt with last year.
“I never want to see how Oklahoma’s TV shots fall on the safe again,” Kindler said. “The dragon is killed and we are around him.”
Kindler added that she was proud of the team, but she admitted that it was not their best performance and knew they could do better.
“We were definitely not our best,” Kindler said. “It seemed to me to compete a little with some weight on our shoulders. So we have to compete with more freedom, more faith.”
History for Missouri
Missouri entered the competition and never went to the finals and his best result in the NCAA championships was fifth. But on Thursday, it changed for some standout performances and heroism with Helen Hu meetings.
Missouri fought with Routine Routina in the final rotation with Florida and closed the day at the beam. And it all came to HU, the final gymnast of the tigers for the event and a beam specialist who Returned to the team for the fifth year after he took 2024.
Hu was almost flawless and earned 9.9875 to secure the second place of the team a tenth point and hit the final almost flawless and earned 9.9875 to secure the second place and hit the finals. She also won the NCAA Beam title.
Call her closer.
Helen Hu won 9.9875 for the tigers.#NCAAGYM x 🎥 ESPN2 / @Mizzougym pic.twitter.com/6mjdcjtqww
– Gymnastics NCAA (@NCAA_GYMNASTICS) 17th April 2025
The team began to celebrate as soon as the HU score was shown on Jumbotron – and again when Florida’s final score appeared shortly after. Missouri eventually Zánicil, 197,3000 – 197.200.
Missouri team members could still be heard screaming and encouraging to celebrate long after the meeting in the corridors of the arena near the dressing room ended. Hu said she didn’t know about what score she needed after she was over.
“I’m just going inside, this is my routine beam, whether we need it or not, I go up and do what I always do,” Hu said later. “So I really had no idea what the situation was. And when we spells and said,” Whether we can, we can be proud of what we did today. “And I agreed with that, and then about 10 seconds later the score was discovered and I was in complete shock.
Chief coach Shannon Welker – who joked that he was late at his press conference because he negotiated his contract again – said he was proud of what his team had achieved but was not surprised.
“I really felt as if it were a special team this year, and we had the opportunity to be the best team in the history of University of Missouri, so it would mean we had to be at least fifth. That was our highest,” Welker said. “So today we obviously crossed it, but it’s just so nice to see what I thought could really happen … (I’m) really excited to be there on Saturday.”
Battle of Night
How tight was Thursday’s night session? All four teams – Utah, UCLA, LSU and Michigan State – were within. 1875 point entering the final rotation. And Utah, UCLA and LSU were all at 0.0750 points. Needless to say, the crowd seemed to live and breathe with every routine and every score.
But it was Utah and UCLA, which came up behind the brave effort of Red Rocks at bars and Bruins’s impressive performance at the beam. Both teams were joyful when the final score showed and realized what it meant. McCallum closed it for Utah with 9,9625 and Emma Malabuyo did the same for UCLA with a giant 9,975.
Bruins are inside!@Emmamalabuyo He gets Bruins trip to the championship with 9.9750!
📺: Espn2 pic.twitter.com/sjohpvntal
– Gymnastics UCLA (@uclagymnastics) 18 April 2025
Utah’s Amelie Morgan said everyone was aware of how close it was, but neither she nor her teammates would let it affect their performance or trust.
“I think it’s always a matter of gymnastics,” beware of your own team and don’t care about anyone else, “but at some point you realize that it’s quite close,” Morgan said. “But I think we have really emphasized for us and the whole season that we have no doubt, and I know for me and almost our whole team, there was no doubt in our minds that we would not do it. And although it was so close, I could do it.
Utah, the nine -time NCAA and UCLA champions, the seven -time NCAA champions, are now back in the well -known territory, and they will both try to bring the final hardware on Saturday. It would have been a long time for both, but especially Utah, which did not win since 1995. UCLA last won the title in 2018.
Masters
In addition to the Bowers, who claimed the versatile title and Hu Ray victory, three more gymnasts became individual NCAA champions on Thursday.
Although it was a disappointment for LSU, Kailin Chio still managed to close his announced season Freshman with the highest point of the stage on the vault with 9.975 for her Yurchenko 1.5.
It makes it easier. 🐯
9.9750 on a vault for Kailin Chio.#NCAAGYM x 🎥 ESPN2 / @LSWYM pic.twitter.com/kdxkbexomw
– Gymnastics NCAA (@NCAA_GYMNASTICS) 18 April 2025
Chiles ucla, the double champion of the NCAA and the Olympic gold medalist, took the highest honors on uneven barch with almost perfect 9.975. Chiles’s enthusiastic reaction after her double layout glued, showed how much it meant to her.
0:41
Jordan Chiles brought tears after he stuck the landing on the bar
Jordan Chiles holds landing on the bar routine and is emotional and at the same time hugs his coach.
And Brooklyn Moors, Chiles’s teammate and Olympian colleague, encountered her first national championship with her sensational floor routine, which was a high praise and high scores throughout the season. At the first event of the night UCLA won 9.9625. Moors called an individual honor “icing upstairs”, but said the real prize got into the Saturday final with its team.
“We’re here to do it for the team,” Moors said. “And I think I say it every time (but) this team is something special, and if we put it together, it’s quite amazing.”
Everything is right with the world! B @Brooklynmoors is the NCAA flooring champion! pic.twitter.com/3i70ntljix
– Gymnastics UCLA (@uclagymnastics) 18 April 2025
