No. 2 LSU Gymnastics Set To Host Iowa State for 2025 Season Opener
BATON ROUGE – The defending national champions and second-ranked LSU Gymnastics team is set to host No. 32 Iowa State for their 2025 season opener inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Friday, January 3, at 6:30 p.m. CT.
“It’s week one for us and it’s an exciting time. This week is our starting point. It’ll give us a good baseline and allow us to grow, gain confidence and prepare us for where we’d like to go,” said head coach Jay Clark. “It’s a new year and this is a new team and we’re going to find out what the personality of our team is as we go and that’s the exciting part. We have an experienced group with the addition of a great freshman group, and I’m very confident that whoever we put out there will do a great job.”
The Tigers season opening competition against the Cyclones will be aired on SEC Network with John Roethelisberger and Sam Peszek on the call. LSU’s 2024 championship banner will be revealed prior to the first vault at 6:32 p.m. CT on Friday.
Live stats and broadcast information for the meet can be found here.
See y’all in the PMAC soon! pic.twitter.com/onHrP4Af6Z
— LSU Gymnastics (@LSUgym) January 3, 2025
2025 WCGA Preseason Ranking
The Tigers will open the new year as the No. 2 team in the nation, as decided in the Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics Association (WCGA) Preseason Coaches Poll.
The WCGA preseason poll is made up of the top-36 teams in the country. This year’s preseason ranking marks the 13th straight year that the Tigers will open the season ranked in the top-10 and the 28th year in the top-25.
LSU surpassed last year’s preseason ranking of three after winning their first national championship in 2024, falling only behind six-time national champions Oklahoma, who were voted the top women’s gymnastics team heading into the 2025 season.
LSU was one of five teams to tally first-place votes from members of the association, claiming the second highest with 1,871 points and six first-place votes. Oklahoma tallied 1,963 points and 42 first place votes to top the preseason poll.
The Tigers will face six of the top-10 ranked teams in the country throughout the regular season in 2025, including a matchup against three of the top-five at the 2025 Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad on Saturday, January 11 in Oklahoma City. Taking place inside the Paycom Center and airing on ABC, the competition will feature No. 2 LSU alongside No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 4 California and No. 5 Utah.
LSU will also welcome the top-ranked Sooners to the PMAC for the first time as conference foes on Friday, February 14, for a highly anticipated matchup on ESPN2.
In total, LSU will meet nine of the top-10 teams in 2025 and 11 of the top-20. All nine teams from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) are ranked in the top-20 of this year’s poll.
The Opponent
Friday’s competition marks the Tigers 15th all-time meeting with the Cyclones. LSU owns a 13-1 record over Iowa State, with their last meeting being in 2020 at the GymQuarters Invitational in Missouri.
Iowa State returns 10 gymnasts from last year’s roster, including Noelle Adams and Josie Bergstrom-Te Slaa, who were both named to the Big 12 Preseason Gymnastics team.
The Cyclones were placed No. 32 in the 2024-25 WCGA preseason poll and will look to carry last year’s momentum under then-first year head coach Ashley Miles Greig. Miles Greig helped guide the Cyclones to a 15-spot jump in the Road to Nationals rankings last season, taking the team back to the postseason after missing out in 2023.
Key Returners in 2025
This year’s squad consists of 21 gymnasts and 15 returners: 10 seniors, two juniors, four sophomores and five freshmen.
Haleigh Bryant, Olivia Dunne, Sierra Ballard, Chase Brock and Alyona Shchennikova are all set to return for their final seasons with the Tigers in 2025. Bryant, Dunne, Ballard and Brock enter their fifth-year season while Schchennikova is in her sixth-year.
Shchennikova is back this year after missing the 2024 season due to injury. She is an All-American on the uneven bars and will return veteran routines to the all-around. The Evergreen, Colorado native owns career high’s of 9.950 on vault and bars, 9.925 on beam, 9.975 on floor and 39.525 in the all-around.
Bryant, the 2024 NCAA All-Around Champion, AAI Award Winner and SEC Gymnast of the Year, will compete in her final season with the Tigers in 2025 after a historical season last year. She owns the program record all-around score (39.925) and career high’s of perfect 10’s across all four events.
A Louisiana native, Ballard is a veteran to the beam and floor lineup, where she owns career high’s of 9.950 and 9.925.
Dunne, a native of Hillsdale, New Jersey, played a vital role to the bars and floor lineups for LSU last season as she returned ready to go on three events. She owns career high’s of 9.925 on bars and 9.900 on floor. Brock is capable of impacting the vault and floor lineups in her final season, where she owns career high’s of 9.975 on vault and 9.925 on floor.
Other key returners for the 2025 season include Aleah Finnegan, KJ Johnson, Tori Tatum, Alexis Jeffrey, Ashley Cowan, Konnor McClain and Amari Drayton.
Finnegan, the 2024 NCAA Floor Champion, will be pivotal in the all-around for the Tigers this year. She enters her final season with career high’s of 10’s on vault, beam and floor, 9.925 on bars and a 39.800 in the all-around.
Johnson competed in every meet on vault for the Tigers during their national championship run in 2024 and in all but one meet on floor. She own career high’s of 9.950 on vault and 9.975 on floor entering her senior season.
Cowan, the 2024 SEC Bars Champion, Tatum and Jeffrey are all mainstays in the bars lineup for the Tigers and all own a career high of 9.950 on the event.
The duo of McClain and Drayton enter their sophomore season after a prominent freshman season, where the two competed in every meet for the Tigers. McClain is coming off an injury but will impact the bars and beam lineups, owning career high’s of a perfect 10 on both events.
Drayton is capable of impacting all four lineups for the Tigers in 2025. She appeared in the vault and floor lineups for LSU last year, recording career high’s of 9.975 on vault and 9.925 on floor.
Kailin Chio, Kaliya Lincoln, Lexi Zeiss, Zoe Miller and Victoria Roberts make up this year’s freshman class.
The 2025 Season
As anticipation builds for the new season, the Tigers are gearing up to defend their title with an exciting mix of home and away meets. Head Coach Jay Clark enters his fifth season leading the Tigers and 14th season overall in 2025. He is joined on staff by Associate Head Coach Courtney McCool Griffeth and Assistant Coaches Garrett Griffeth and Ashleigh Gnat.
LSU will face eight SEC opponents throughout the regular season, including hosting the newest league members Oklahoma, before concluding the regular season against Auburn on Friday, March 14.
Clark continues to lead the Tigers to new heights every year, both on the competition floor and outside of the gym. The Tigers surpassed last year’s season ticket record with already over 8,680 tickets sold ahead of the 2025 season.
The Tigers have five home opportunities this year after going undefeated at home in 2024 and finishing the season with the highest average attendance in the nation for only the second time in program history. They will host Iowa State, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma and Georgia to Baton Rouge in 2025.
LSU finished the 2024 regular season with an average attendance of 12,590, marking the highest average in school history and the seventh-straight season with an average of 10,000 or better. A total of over 75,000 Tiger fans showed out to the PMAC, including three consecutive sold-out crowds. LSU has now finished in the top four of average attendance nationally for six consecutive years.
The postseason kicks off with the 2025 SEC Championships on Saturday, March 22, in Birmingham, Alabama. NCAA Regionals will take place from April 2-6 with Utah, Washington, Alabama and Pennsylvania State serving as host sites. Fort Worth is once again the home of the NCAA Championships, which is set for April 17-19.
View LSU’s full 2025 schedule here.
Tigers on TV
The Tigers will be featured on national television seven times throughout the regular season in 2025. As the Tigers gear up to defend their title next year, fans across the country will have multiple opportunities to watch LSU in 2025 as NCAA Gymnastics continues to reach new heights across ESPN platforms. Their seven appearances on national television matches the program’s record broadcast time set in 2024.
2024 NCAA champion LSU kicks off the new season with the first televised meet of the season this Friday against Iowa State in the PMAC. The following weekend, LSU will compete in the second annual Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad, as Session II on ABC sees the Tigers take on California, Utah and Oklahoma.
ESPN and ESPN2 will host nine regular season matchups in 2025, with LSU being featured in three of those key matchups. The Tigers will face Florida and Oklahoma in primetime in the PMAC on Jan. 17 and Feb. 14, while traveling to Tuscaloosa on Feb. 7.
While broadcast time is at an all-time high, fans are encouraged to pack the PMAC for the Tigers five home meets in 2025. LSU will look to hold onto the nation’s attendance record for the second consecutive year with individual meet tickets going on sale soon.
Follow the Tigers
Stay up to date with all things LSU Gymnastics by following the team’s social media channels @LSUgym on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.