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Monthly Archives: December 2022
2023 Auburn Tigers
[wptb id=95691]
Ranking History
2022 – 4th
2021 – 35th
2020 – 17th
2019 – 16th
2018 – 14th
2017 – 15th
2016 – 11th
2015 – 6th
2014 – 20th
2013 – 13th
2012 – 15th
Where 2022 Finished…
The 2022 season ranks as Auburn’s best finish of all time, outpacing the 5th-place result from back in 1993, so that’s…you know…good. I suppose it went pretty well. This was just the fourth time in history that Auburn finished a season ranked in the top 10, joining 1991, 1993, and 2015. The lion’s share of the credit for that result will go a little someone named Suni Lee, who spurred an exponential increase in notoriety, routine difficulty, and routine quality for Auburn. Certainly, the 4th-place finish would never have happened without her, but it’s also worth noting the degree of team effort present in Auburn’s historic season. Removing Lee’s NQSs, Auburn would still have ranked in the top 10 in 2022, which also would have been one of the best seasons in team history.
Gains and Losses
| LOST | GAINED |
| Drew Watson – VT, FX, (UB) | Olivia Greaves |
| Tara Walsh – (VT) | Hannah Hagle |
| Jada Glenn – (VT) | Hailey John |
| Payton Smith | |
The New Ones
Auburn will expect fairly minimal changes to the lineups in 2023 with a small first-year class that got even smaller when Olivia Greaves was ruled out for the season with an ACL setback. Greaves would otherwise have been expected to factor significantly in the bars and beam lineups this year (and of course would have the gymnastics to be an all-arounder, but we’ll see how things go with vault and floor after all this ACLing).
Hannah Hagle has been a strong AA finisher at States and Regionals in L10 since she dropped back from elite and should be the type who provides an option on any event depending on the needs of the team and how many lineup spots actually open up, especially considering all the locks returning from last season. Hagle was an early-lineup performer on all four at Auburn’s preview meet.
Auburn will also have Hailey John this season, one who has been out with injury for a good long time (her last L10 championship season was pre-pandemic) but had some real beam chops, as well as some inbar work, as a little.
Event by Event
VAULT
2022 Event Ranking: 5
| Lineup locks: Derrian Gobourne, Suni Lee, Sara Hubbard, Cassie Stevens |
| Lineup options: Olivia Hollingsworth, Sophia Groth, Hannah Hagle, Gabby McLaughlin, Adeline Sabados |
In the position of honor in the vault lineup, Auburn will return Derrian Gobourne’s Y1.5 and Suni Lee’s WhateverSheWants, which should be the top vault scores on the team again this season. The single best thing Lee can do to keep up with Rebeca Andrade is to develop a competition-level Cheng for the summer/fall 2023 collection, so I would imagine the Lopez (plus…) would continue being the intended direction for her college vaulting. The Y1.5s from Sara Hubbard and Cassie Stevens should once again make up the middle meat of the lineup sandwich.
The single most significant loss for Auburn on any event is no longer having Drew Watson’s Y1.5 in this vault lineup since there’s not exactly an obvious replacement for her. The best-case plan would probably be to have the Olivia Hollingsworth Y1.5 materialize, though Auburn may end up throwing a couple Yfulls into the lineup this year. That’s not going to keep pace with the best teams and their full lineups of 10.0 starts, but it’s not dire. Groth scored pretty well, especially early in the season, for her full in 2022, and Hannah Hagle brings solid amplitude and comfort level on a full as well, both of which should at least see some time, if not all the time.
BARS
2022 Event Ranking: 5
| Lineup locks: Suni Lee, Derrian Gobourne, Aria Brusch, Cassie Stevens |
| Lineup options: Adeline Sabados, Sophia Groth, Piper Smith, Anna Sumner, Olivia Hollingsworth, Piper Smith, Hannah Hagle, Gabby McLaughlin |
Auburn returns everybody from the 2022 lineup, and with no new gymnasts aggressively pushing their way into the bars six, staying exactly the same here seems like a pretty solid plan to me. Certainly, Lee and Gobourne will lead the charge, with the main question for Lee being what routine composition will get her the most 10s. Aria Brusch had an exceptionally strong season on bars as well in 2022, and Cassie Stevens likely secured her 2023 place by hitting every week last season.
Adeline Sabados has been a fixture of this lineup for pretty much her whole career, and Sophia Groth broke into the lineup toward the middle of the 2022 season and typically notched some big numbers, while also being a little more prone to 9.7s. Those six would represent a complete return of the 2022 lineup and, gasp, about the same scoring expectations. In terms of potential disruptions to that group, Anna Sumner missed last season but did get some 9.8s in 2021, and Piper Smith had a couple falls in her five routines last year but also has been to the 9.9s twice in her career.
BEAM
2022 Event Ranking: 4
| Lineup locks: Suni Lee, Sophia Groth, Gabby McLaughlin, Cassie Stevens, Aria Brusch |
| Lineup options: Olivia Hollingsworth, Hannah Hagle, Piper Smith, Hailey John, Morgan Leigh Oldham |
Beam ranked as Auburn’s best event last season and loses exactly zero routines, so like bars, there’s probably not an extreme amount of urgency to change things in 2023. While Suni Lee absolutely shockingly led the team on beam in 2022—the only surprise may have been that her beam NQS ended up higher than her bars NQS—the big win was getting nearly equivalent scores from Sophia Groth, someone who had pretty low beam scores at the end of her L10 career because of consistency struggles but who hit 15-for-15 in the 2022 season with nothing lower than 9.800. Meanwhile, Gabby McLaughlin went 9.9+ on beam nine different times in 2022 and comes in as the #3 returning beamer. So that looks pretty good.
As on bars, Cassie Stevens and Aria Brusch competed the entirety of last season for solid scores, and no one really seems to be knocking them out of those positions that they have secured for themselves. Hollingsworth provided the sixth lineup routine in 2022, and Auburn will expect to have Hagle as a possibility as well as Piper Smith, who did go 9.900 one time in each of the last two seasons.
FLOOR
2022 Event Ranking: 6
| Lineup locks: Derrian Gobourne, Suni Lee, Sophia Groth, Cassie Stevens |
| Lineup options: Aria Brusch, Olivia Hollingsworth, Sara Hubbard, Hannah Hagle, Gabby McLaughlin, Adeline Sabados, Morgan Leigh Oldham, Ananda Brown |
Technically, floor was Auburn’s lowest-ranked event in 2022, but since it ranked 6th, that’s not such a big concern. The concern may be how to make up for the lost routine from Drew Watson, though on floor there are several more gymnasts than on vault who have not yet reached their full potential but really should make a lineup based on their ability. In theory, floor should be Hollingsworth’s best event, and while we haven’t seen that much floor from her in college lately, her open 1/2-in-1/2-out looked strong in Auburn’s preview meet. Similarly, Sara Hubbard’s full-in should have a place in a floor lineup as long as Auburn finds a leap combination that can work without getting her stuck sub-9.8, and we’re still waiting on the potential of Ananda Brown’s L10 floor routine to be fulfilled.
You could see any one of them breaking into a lineup where the locked-in back half is going to be high quality with Gobourne, Lee, and Groth getting the biggest scores and Stevens not far behind. Brusch was out of the lineup for a bit of the middle of 2022 after not showing a lot of floor in 2021, but she returned for the championship meets for 9.8s in 4 of 5 routines and seems like the odds-on option again, though one that could be knocked out of the six depending on how many of those potential-heavy routines come through this year. Despite losing Watson, Auburn won’t anticipate dropping tenths on floor in 2023.
2023 UCLA Bruins
[wptb id=95702]
Ranking History
2022 – 12th
2021 – 12th
2020 – 3rd
2019 – 3rd
2018 – 1st
2017 – 4th
2016 – 5th
2015 – 11th
2014 – 8th
2013 – 4th
2012 – 3rd
Where 2022 Finished…
Just another normal season totally free of drama and angst. We all had a great, healthy time. What doesn’t kill you makes you much, much weaker. The bottom line is that UCLA finished 12th for a second consecutive year in 2022, the first time in program history that UCLA has missed nationals in back-to-back seasons. While 2021 could be considered an outlier year in which COVID deferrals lead to a one-season talent gap, all that talent arrived in 2022 for what ended up being the exact same finish and exact same regionals exit.
Now, a new coaching regime will be tasked with stopping the bleeding and bringing UCLA at the very least back to nationals, if not to the championship final. That may seem like a leap given the way the last two seasons played out but should absolutely be the expectation for a roster this good.
Gains and Losses
| LOST | GAINED |
| Norah Flatley – VT, UB, BB, FX | Ciena Alipio |
| Pauline Tratz – FX (VT) | Selena Harris |
| Kendal Poston – VT (BB) | Maddie Anyimi |
| Samantha Sakti – BB (FX) | Clara Wren |
| Sekai Wright – VT, FX | |
| Sara Taubman – (UB) |
The New Ones
While this year’s sophomore class is the big one, the one that will need to carry the team if this is to be a successful season, expect to see a chunk of lineup gymnastics from first-year athletes. The star of this class is going to be Selena Harris, the two-time L10 AA national champion who won the all-around in 75% of her post-COVID meets. It’s tough to project the all-around for a L10 athlete on a team with this many big names, but…yeah she should be in every lineup, probably toward the end of most of them.
The most recognizable name in the class is Ciena Alipio, the five-year elite who most recently won the silver medal on beam at 2022 US Nationals. We did not see anything from Alipio at Meet the Bruins, but beam is her main one. That’s where she should really figure for this team (a stacked event already), though with refined college gymnastics skill selection you could definitely see clean bars and floor, and a Yfull on vault, that work their way into lineups.
Maddie Anyimi is a walk-on who came on very strongly at the end of the 2022 L10 season at states-regionals-nationals with results that we hadn’t seen from her before (she went from 41st as a junior in 2021 to 15th as a senior in 2022), and she continued that upward trajectory at Meet the Bruins with realistic routines on vault, bars, and floor. When everyone’s healthy, she’s going to be a backup on those events, but a completely usable backup who—depending on how intact the rest of the team is, or stays—seems like she could end up having a Sonya Meraz-style walk-on career where she’s just constantly necessary.
Clara Wren rounds out the class with a handspring pike on vault, where the project will be to see if that can become a handspring pike 1/2 for 10.0 start in an “I’m the Kendal Poston now” kind of way.
Event by Event
VAULT
2022 Event Ranking: 12
| Lineup locks: Jordan Chiles, Chae Campbell, Selena Harris |
| Lineup options: Brooklyn Moors, Emma Malabuyo, Emily Lee, Maddie Anyimi, Margzetta Frazier, Ciena Alipio, Katie McNamara, Clara Wren |
Vault is probably the worry event for UCLA this season, with the smallest supply of excellent routines. There’s good news at the top of the lineup, where they’ll have the DTY from Jordan Chiles and the Yfull from Chae Campbell, which was the team’s top-scoring vault last season and probably will be again this season despite being a full. Selena Harris’s Y1.5 is already absolutely necessary in this lineup and will be a top-3 vault at minimum this year.
After those three locks, however, we start to have questions. The next-best returning score on vault comes from Emma Malabuyo, who had a pretty Yfull last season, but it was still a 9.825y Yurchenko full. That’s not a score that a top team wants to count on vault, let alone rely on in the 3rd spot.
The best-case plan for UCLA to improve contention on vault would be getting Emily Lee into the lineup with some manner of difficulty (considering that her DTY was always good for over 14 in elite) as well as getting Brooklyn Moors back in. Moors was in the lineup for most of the beginning of last season with her 10.0-start handspring pike 1/2, and UCLA will be eager to get that to a place where it can score more than 9.850 this year. With those two in, you wouldn’t mind as much a lower-9.8 Yurchenko full in the first spot from Malabuyo. Or if not her, then Anyimi or Frazier or Alipio.
The risk for UCLA here is starting out in the first three spots with 9.775-9.800-9.825, which is not bad but puts a lot of pressure on the final three to get…well basically 10s if UCLA is going to stay close with the teams that expect to go all-9.9+, which is what the top vault teams will expect this year.
BARS
2022 Event Ranking: 19
| Lineup locks: Margzetta Frazier, Jordan Chiles, Selena Harris, Emily Lee |
| Lineup options: Chae Campbell, Frida Esparza, Emma Malabuyo, Ana Padurariu, Sara Ulias, Ciena Alipio, Maddie Anyimi, Kalyany Steele, Katie McNamara |
Things are looking up on bars for UCLA—a combination of new talent, newly healthy talent, and hiring probably the most pursued bars coach in the country as the new head coach. It would be a huge surprise indeed if UCLA were to rank something like 19th on this event again.
In terms of additions to last season’s group, UCLA will aim to have Marz Frazier back in the anchor position going 9.9+ each time, as well as lineup sets from Selena Harris and Emily Lee. Bars was typically Lee’s low score in elite, but her routine should pare down well for NCAA and looked very encouraging form-wise at Meet the Bruins despite an error on the Pak. Having those three in the lineup this year should more than make up for not having Norah Flatley anymore, and of course Jordan Chiles will return performing twice as much difficulty as necessary (literally, she has 1.2 in bonus and you need 0.6 to start from a 10) for one of the team’s best scores.
This increase in top-level options should allow UCLA to be pickier about who the remaining routines are as they aim to ratchet up that NQS. I’d be partial to Frida Esparza as the gymnast with the best scoring potential among everyone not mentioned yet, though we did not see her do anything at MTB. Chae Champell would seem an odds-on bet to return to the lineup as well. It’s not going to be the highest score from Campbell, but she has been such a constant for 9.8s in that first position for her whole career that you wouldn’t throw that aside too casually.
This six, however, would leave out both Emma Malabuyo and Ana Padurariu, two gymnasts with top-six form on the bars but who struggled with dismount consistency enough last season that their scores were not the highest and their positions might not be a given this time around. But get them some consistency, and you could absolutely see weekly 9.9s from them and see them knocking out an Esparza or a Lee or a Campbell. There’s also the Sara Ulias factor, a gymnast who had quite legitimately the second-best execution in the bars lineup in her first season but who was not able to follow that up in 2022. Still a potential wildcard.
BEAM
2022 Event Ranking: 12
| Lineup locks: Emma Malabuyo, Jordan Chiles, Emily Lee, Selena Harris, Ana Padurariu |
| Lineup options: Ciena Alipio, Chae Campbell, Margzetta Frazier, Frida Esparza, Brooklyn Moors, Chloe Lashbrooke, Mia Erdoes |
Much has been made of UCLA’s beam issues lately, but unlike a typical Balance Beam Situation, the problem in 2022 was not the massive implosion. The team counted a fall on beam just once the entire season, a record most beam squads would bite your sequin off for. The problem was more that suddenly Chiles and Campbell and Moors would all go 9.775 and the score was lost without us even really noticing that something was going that wrong. Every week. Chiles broke the 9.8 mark on beam only four times during the entire 2022 season (she was sub-9.8 in 60% of her beam routines), which remains shocking. If Jordan Chiles is scoring 9.750, everyone stop what you’re doing until she’s getting 9.950.
The beam roster should be quite stacked for UCLA in 2023. Malabuyo will probably score more 10s and can be the national beam champion, Emily Lee is most at home on beam and should get her best results on this apparatus, and Harris has the combination of dance and acro comfort to get huge results. Add back in Jordan Chiles not getting 9.7s, and the team’s #2 and #3 returning beam scores from Ana Padurariu and Chae Campbell, and that’s an excellent lineup of routines, all of which can envision getting 9.9s, even before throwing in Ciena Alipio, whom we would imagine should be a top beam worker in college. They can’t all fit.
The beam goal should always be to have 9.9s sitting on the sidelines being pissed off that they can’t get a look at the lineup (I mean smiling for their sisters) because the six are just too good.
Ideally we would see Brooklyn Moors make her way back into this lineup after performing beam 4 times in 2022 because of just how much I would prefer to watch that routine, but she’s going to have to prove a level of consistency she has not done yet in order to knock out a couple of the aforementioned seven. It’s no easy task. There’s also Marz Frazier to keep in mind here who, after not really seeming comfortable on beam early in her college career, made the 2021 lineup with a mid-9.8s NQS, a score that wouldn’t automatically break into the lineup on this team but could challenge.
FLOOR
2022 Event Ranking: 12
| Lineup locks: Chae Campbell, Jordan Chiles, Brooklyn Moors, Margzetta Frazier |
| Lineup options: Selena Harris, Emma Malabuyo, Emily Lee, Maddie Anyimi, Ciena Alipio, Chloe Lashbrooke, Katie McNamara |
UCLA will look back on 2022’s floor team as one that should have been ranked #1 in the country after bringing in Jordan Chiles and Brooklyn Moors but never got there. In 2023, UCLA will aim to get 9.950s and 10.000s out of Campbell and Chiles pretty much every week, as well as continue refining composition choices that ensure Moors and Frazier get the scores that their performance quality warrants. You don’t want Moors getting tripped up by a wonky combination pass and Frazier having an out of control dance connection that keeps them out of the 9.9s. With those four leading the way, UCLA should consider anything less than 49.5-away/49.6-home a missed opportunity on floor. If it were me, I would lead off the lineup with Moors because if anyone can “but my artistry” a 9.9+ at home even if she’s off on a landing, it’s her. And then Malabuyo goes normal-clean-crisp in the second spot for 9.950 and you’re off to the races.
As for the remaining routines outside the Campbell-Chiles-Frazier-Moors leadership quorum, you probably want them coming from some combination of Malabuyo, Harris, and Lee—with the occasional contribution from Lashbrooke and Anyimi. Malabuyo really started to find her 9.9s on floor at the end of last season, Selena Harris typically mastered “this double pike is easy for me” floor scores, and Emily Lee was really making waves on floor in her last year or so of elite with that strong DLO. There should be more than enough options here.
2023 LSU Tigers
[wptb id=95709]
Ranking History
2022 – 18th
2021 – 6th
2020 – 6th
2019 – 2nd
2018 – 4th
2017 – 2nd
2016 – 2nd
2015 – 10th
2014 – 3rd
2013 – 5th
2012 – 9th
Where 2022 Finished…
So it didn’t turn out…awesome. A favorite to advance to nationals at least, LSU had its 2022 season prematurely cut short in the regional semifinal when a counting beam fall and some compounding bars problems (and a limited Haleigh Bryant) saw the Tigers lose to both Missouri and Iowa and get eliminated before the round of 16, ending with one of the team’s weakest-ever results in 18th place.
While that actual 18th place will be filed under “just one of those things,” the more pressing issue for LSU is that the team was sort of 5th-7th in the hierarchy all season long, which again mimicked the 6th-place finish from 2021. It’s not bad, but it’s also not exactly the goal a program like LSU will have for itself, especially after all those seasons of 2nd place and expecting a championship. The question for 2023 isn’t whether LSU will be better than 18th. It will be. The question is whether LSU can be better than 6th, which has been the constant status so far in the Jay Clark era (extending right to this year’s preseason coaches poll).
Gains and Losses
| LOST | GAINED |
| Sarah Edwards – VT, FX | Cammy Hall |
| Christina Desiderio – BB, FX | Annie Beard |
| Sami Durante – UB (VT, BB) | Ashley Cowan |
| Bridget Dean – BB | Bryce Wilson |
| Reagan Campbell – (BB, FX) | |
| Rebecca D’Antonio |
The New Ones
LSU has three first-year newcomers, led by Bryce Wilson who has been a staple of Nastia Cups and L10 Nationals for years now. Wilson’s best event has always been vault, which earned her three 10.0s in the 2022 season, but floor is pretty much right up there and also snatched a top-5 finish at nationals this year. While she did not feature in the main six on either event at LSU’s Gym 101 (perhaps slightly concerning), she performed in exhibition positions and her presence in those lineups will be at least a long-term goal if not a short-term goal since Wilson is known as one of the top L10 vault-floor prospects in this year’s class. Beam also should be a legitimate lineup option, and while she did not perform on bars at the 101, it was always a good score for her in L10. We should see by far the most of Wilson among the new LSU gymnasts.
Ashley Cowan is predominantly a bars gymnast, known for her release amplitude, who won her age group on bars at nationals this year. LSU has at least one spot in that bars lineup that definitely needs filling, and Cowan should be in the race with a couple other gymnasts there. Her next-best event possibility would be floor, where she is a good twister with a front 2/1 in her pocket.
Rounding out the class is Annie Beard, the former Texas Dreams junior elite who has been around the L10 circuit for a few years now post-elite, regularly placing well on vault, beam, and floor. LSU is in need of some new beam routines this year to restock from that graduated class, so if she’s healthy, Beard would pretty much be at the top of the list of possible new beamers.
LSU also welcomed Utah transfer Cammy Hall to the team for her fifth year in 2023. Hall would have ideally provided a lineup Y1.5 on vault, but she will miss the season with injury.
Event by Event
VAULT
2022 Event Ranking: 3
| Lineup locks: Haleigh Bryant, Kiya Johnson, KJ Johnson, Aleah Finnegan, Alyona Shchennikova |
| Lineup options: Bryce Wilson, Elena Arenas, Chase Brock, Alexis Jeffrey |
LSU’s hopes to upgrade the vault lineup took a bit of a hit this preseason with Cammy Hall being ruled out. She would have seemed a natural replacement for the lost Y1.5 from Sarah Edwards, but it turns out that 10.0-start replacement is instead going to come from Aleah Finnegan, who showed a very nice Omelianchik at Gym 101 that should now be a lock for the lineup. LSU will also want to develop a lineup routine from Bryce Wilso, especially considering the DTY she wowed with in L10, as that would now seem the best path to upgrading the vault scores. But at least keeping pace with last year’s vaulting seems likely.
As for the returners, Haleigh Bryant brings her handspring pike 1/2 back, and Kiya Johnson brings her DTY back, so those will be huge scores again. We can assume that Shchennikova’s Y1.5 will be vital again this year, and KJ Johnson’s Yfull was one of the team’s best vault scores last season and should be the same this time. Those four, along with Finnegan and Wilson, probably make up the ideal vault lineup, though Elena Arenas’s full is very clean and sometimes stuck, so any other 10.0 starts or fulls are going to have to be quite reliable to knock her out of the lineup.
BARS
2022 Event Ranking: 10
| Lineup locks: Alyona Shchennikova, Kiya Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, Olivia Dunne |
| Lineup options: Aleah Finnegan, Alexis Jeffrey, Elena Arenas, Ashley Cowan, Tori Tatum, Chase Brock, Kamryn Ryan |
Bars was LSU’s lowest-ranked event in 2022 and has now lost Sami Durante, so there’s some work to do to get back up to conference-winning level on this event. Still, most of last year’s lineup members look like they remain the best available options. Haleigh Bryant came through as a bars star last season for 9.9s almost every week and will be a big deal again this year. Meanwhile, Kiya Johnson will show up with the crispest, most reliable routine on the team in the leadoff spot, probably for 9.825s again, and we’ll spend a lot of time talking about Shchennikova’s double pikeout every time she goes 9.925. Sunrise, sunset, these things all seem like givens.
Olivia Dunne has been dealing with labrum injuries but looked pretty close to being ready to go on bars at the Gym 101, just doing her dismount separately, so we can probably feel comfortable putting her back into this lineup, where her execution will certainly earn her a spot again as long as she’s healthy.
The best upgrade (slash Durante replacement) option for this lineup will come from Aleah Finnegan, who did one bars routine for 9.850 in 2022 but will probably need to do bars every week in 2023. The piked Deltchev looks great, so as long as she has a consistent dismount, she’d be an obvious choice for the lineup and a contender for one of the best scores.
The sixth spot looks like kind of a free-for-all right now with a lot of 9.750 gymnastics bumping around, and someone will need to turn into a reliable 9.850+ if LSU is to avoid dropping ground on bars this year. I thought Alexis Jeffrey looked like the best choice at the Gym 101, but they’ll also have Elena Arenas, who ended up in the final lineup last year, and newcomer Ashley Cowan. The mysterious Tori Tatum, a former elite and L10 standout, did also show a bars routine after not competing in 2022.
BEAM
2022 Event Ranking: 5
| Lineup locks: Kiya Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, Aleah Finnegan, Kai Rivers |
| Lineup options: Bryce Wilson, Alyona Shchennikova, Annie Beard, Elena Arenas, KJ Johnson, Sierra Ballard, Olivia Dunne |
With the losses of Desiderio, Dean, Campbell, and Durante, LSU’s supply of beam routines took a hit and the depth chart here looks the most different from 2022. Finding out the identities of last couple members of this lineup could be a process.
In the lock department, we have the top three returning scores from last year’s team: Kiya Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, and Aleah Finnegan. They’re the three best beamers on this roster and will be called upon for weekly 9.9s to make sure this event score stays competitive. Because of injury, Kai Rivers is likely to be limited to beam this season, but expect to see her in this lineup because she is the best proven entity among the remaining beamers on the roster with three 9.9s over her eight career beam routines, all hit. Rivers is the most important figure in Operation Restock Beam.
As for the remaining spots in the lineup, we may have another free-for-all. If she’s available, you want Annie Beard in there. Elena Arenas performed two beam routines last season, both for 9.8s, and it looks like Bryce Wilson is going to provide a nominee. Shchennikova is not always the most sure thing on beam (and wouldn’t have received credit for an acro series at the 101), but she has competed a number of times before, and typically for countable scores. LSU also showed off beam routines from a couple unexpected characters in leg-event specialists KJ Johnson and Sierra Ballard, who I would say exceeded expectations in their beam routines but probably don’t have the leaps for huge scores.
As these bars and beam lineups go, so will LSU in 2023. Finding those new athletes to fill the fifth and sixth spots with 9.875s instead of 9.775s will be essential if this is to be a top-4 season.
FLOOR
2022 Event Ranking: 8
| Lineup locks: Kiya Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, KJ Johnson, Alyona Shchennikova, Aleah Finnegan |
| Lineup options: Sierra Ballard, Olivia Dunne, Elena Arenas, Bryce Wilson, Chase Brock |
Floor should be among the more predictable (and stronger) events for LSU in 2023, as long as everyone stays healthy enough to compete regularly. The team returns six athletes who all received multiple 9.9s on floor last year in Kiya Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, KJ Johnson, Alyona Shchennikova, Aleah Finnegan, and Olivia Dunne, and I’d contend it’s the most impressive apparatus for Johnson, Johnson, and Shchennikova (and only isn’t for Bryant because her vault is…her vault). You’d be quite happy with those six as floor lineup, and it’s probably the ideal choice for LSU. What curtailed LSU’s floor ranking journey last season was that there always seemed to be someone (or someones) out that week, whether it was Kiya Johnson at the beginning of the season, or Bryant at the end, or Shchennikova for a while in there. The best-case lineup wasn’t all together very often and will need to be together more in 2023.
In terms of other options for the inevitable times when the best-case lineup isn’t together, Sierra Ballard and Elena Arenas both competed last season for 9.7s and will probably be called upon again this season. Ballard’s DLO always does make for a theoretically compelling option, and she was the one who made it into the main six in place of Dunne at the 101, where Bryce Wilson and Chase Brock also showed routines.