NCAA gymnastics is hitting its stride, with the SEC gearing up to flex its regular-season muscles via a stacked conference schedule.
Fresh off a narrow 0.2-point loss to No. 1 Oklahoma last week, No. 2 LSU will host No. 3 Alabama on Friday night — with the Tigers bolstered after earning a season-high road score of 197.925 against the defending national champion Sooners.
Leading LSU’s charge this year is all-around contender Kailin Chio, with the star sophomore not only earning the team’s only perfect score of the season so far, but doing it four times, logging 10s on vault, floor exercise, and twice on the balance beam in the last month.
“She’s just operating at such an efficient, consistent, extremely high level, and seems to really rise to the occasion in moments where we need her,” Tigers head coach Jay Clark said of the nation’s second-leading all-arounder.
The Crimson Tide will also come to play on Friday night, with Alabama’s best chance to surpass LSU coming on the uneven bars, where junior Chloe LaCoursiere and freshman Azaraya Ra-Akbar currently top the event as the Nos. 1 and 3 gymnasts, respectively, in the country.
With seven of the eight top college gymnastics teams hailing from the SEC, the conference is looking strong in its hunt for a third straight NCAA trophy, with LSU snapping a nine-year SEC title drought in 2024.
Then in 2025, SEC debutants Oklahoma added to the conference streak, securing a seventh program NCAA championship after winning their first six national trophies as a Big 12 team.
How to watch Alabama vs. LSU gymnastics on Friday
The SEC gymnastics titans will meet in Baton Rouge on Friday night, with live coverage beginning when the teams take the mat at 9:30 PM ET on the SEC Network.
