One of the best rattling present in Baton Rouge: LSU Gymnastics and the Return of the Champs

On the planet of school athletics, it’s arduous to attract a crowd throughout winter break. The ultimate exams for the autumn semester are over, college students are dwelling for the vacations. However but in Baton Rouge on a Monday night time in mid-December, a sea of purple and gold flooded the entrances of the Pete Maravich Meeting Heart.

Face-painted youngsters cheer for his or her favourite athletes, holding up do-it-yourself indicators stating, “I like Haleigh!” and “It’s my eighth birthday!” 1000’s of followers file into seats in a fever pitch of pleasure, prepared to look at the one of many greatest reveals in all of school sports activities – LSU gymnastics.

The annual Gymnastics 101 showcase has change into a cherished custom, and returned this 12 months presenting Open Mike Night time: a preseason exhibition for followers forward of the season opener in January, providing a sneak peek of recent routines and lineups together with interactive interviews with the group. It additionally serves as a costume rehearsal for the athletes, serving to them acclimate to performing in entrance of a roaring crowd.

Picture by Stephen Bayog/College Pictures by way of Getty Pictures

Free to the general public, the occasion attracts in numerous locals, followers from all throughout Louisiana and past. The night time is centered round recognizing this system’s followers and skyrocketing help because of the group’s current accomplishments, together with final 12 months’s nationwide championship.

Coming into the 2025 season, they stands out as the No. 2 seed, however nothing can high the unparalleled spirit that encompasses LSU girls’s gymnastics.

Head coach Jay Clark begins his fifth season with the Tigers having already obtained three championship appearances and the current nationwide title, emphasizes the significance of adjusting the athletes to the pressures of the stage.

“It’s vital to get out of that consolation zone,” stated Clark. “There’s lots of actually good, constant stuff happening within the gymnasium, however what does it appear like once you get into a unique atmosphere?”

Picture by Stephen Bayog/College Pictures by way of Getty Pictures

Crowds of over 12,000 might be formidable to the common collegiate athlete, however the highlight is nothing new for Clark’s gymnasts.

A record-breaking 2024 season noticed this system with the most important attendance numbers in faculty gymnastics, together with three sold-out meets on the PMAC and going undefeated at dwelling altogether. Their achievements garnered the eye of hundreds of thousands and, as a brand new season approaches, all eyes stay on LSU.

On Dec. 10, the Girls’s Collegiate Gymnastics Affiliation introduced the 2025 preseason ballot, inserting LSU at No. 2 behind No. 1 Oklahoma. Of their final matchup, LSU got here second to the Sooners within the Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad on impartial floor in West Valley Metropolis, Utah. The groups will reunite for a similar meet this season, assembly in Oklahoma for a showdown.

The 2 powerhouses will face off once more in a Valentine’s Day convention matchup that guarantees to be one of many season’s most anticipated occasions. This time round, the Tigers may have the benefit–in entrance of the house crowd made up of the die-hard, cult-like followers of LSU athletics. By far, the group’s greatest ace is its supporters–nobody reveals out like Baton Rouge.

Generations of Tigers “pack the PMAC” on Friday nights, as alumni share the extraordinary expertise with their youngsters and grandchildren as part of LSU household traditions. Similar to soccer, LSU gymnastics is not only a one-time factor for some, however a life-style, and lots of of those attendees make-up the big portion of followers which can be season ticket holders.

This fall’s preseason ticket gross sales smashed all earlier information with 8,680 season tickets offered, over 600 greater than final 12 months–it’s protected to say LSU may have one other 12 months of record-breaking crowds. The joy across the program is palpable and gymnastics on the PMAC stays incomparable now greater than ever, however the group nonetheless has a frightening title to reside as much as.

Final spring, followers received to witness a decades-long journey come to an epic conclusion when the group received their first NCAA championship. Hopes had been excessive for the Tigers forward of the 2024 season because the No. 3 seed and a blended lineup of expertise and high recruits. In essential moments in the course of the common and postseason, the Tigers delivered when it mattered most. Within the NCAA championships’ 4 on the Ground, they had been hailed the most effective within the nation after an virtually flawless efficiency on beam by Aleah Finnegan within the ultimate rotation sealed the deal. LSU completed with a lead of slightly below 4 tenths over California, Florida and Utah.

Haleigh Bryant delivered breathtaking performances that earned her nationwide acclaim and the 2024 particular person all-around champion title, whereas Finnegan claimed the NCAA ground title.

The group grew to become instantaneous native royalty, as celebrations ensued throughout campus: parades lasting miles and ceremonies lasting hours as followers continued to revel within the pleasure of the achievement.

Picture by Aric Becker/ISI Images/Getty Pictures

“It’s such an emotional launch that occurred final 12 months and the celebration that has been protracted since then,” stated Clark. “It’s a blessing, but it surely’s probably a curse.”

Clark and the group know the highway from right here doesn’t get any simpler, as recreating final season’s success underneath the eyes of the nation will show to be a fair larger problem. Followers will pour into arenas across the nation to look at the reigning champs try to defend their title.

This summer season, Finnegan took her abilities to the worldwide stage, competing for Workforce Philippines on the Olympics in Paris and additional cementing her star standing forward of her senior 12 months.

Following a 12 months of main accomplishments for the squad, 2025 appears filled with alternatives, and for some, will probably be the final dance of their collegiate profession.

Lots of the program’s fan-favorites shall be returning to steer the group for one final season, comparable to Finnegan, Bryant and Olivia Dunne in her fifth and ultimate 12 months of eligibility. Regardless of the wealth of expertise, Clark is aware of that nothing is assured.

“We now have to protect towards pondering that this group has accomplished something as a result of it hasn’t,” Clark defined. “It has the flexibility to do something that it units its thoughts to, however this isn’t that group. We now have to ensure that they perceive that.”

The glory of a nationwide championship and the celebrity that comes with the title can get to the top of any athlete. It’s the greatest achievement in all of school athletics and deserves the utmost respect, however complacency has change into Clark’s greatest concern for the reason that second they grew to become champions.

In line with him, the championship title belongs to final 12 months’s group, not this one. This group should forge its personal id, and solely then can they reside as much as the big precedent set earlier than them.

“The primary hardest factor to do is recover from the hump and win one after which the subsequent hardest factor is to be sure you don’t stroll round performing such as you’ve arrived,” stated Clark.

In a do-or-die season, the highlight is firmly mounted on Baton Rouge, with the intangible hype surrounding LSU and the upcoming season taking up girls’s faculty gymnastics, proving they’re those to look at.

As a fan, you’ll by no means expertise the rest prefer it. From the raging crowds of the PMAC to the athletes who pour their hearts into each routine, LSU represents the most effective of collegiate athletics. LSU gymnastics isn’t only a group—it’s a phenomenon.