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    Highlights from the 2025 NCAA gymnastics semifinals

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    Highlights from the 2025 NCAA gymnastics semifinals

    April 18, 2025, 12:54 AM ET

    Fort Worth, Texas – Eight teams on Thursday gave the NCAA gymnastics opportunity to move forward in Saturday’s finals in the semi -finals.

    After a day, four teams remain upset with a shocking champion LSU. And now, the forum has been determined for a compelling conclusion for the 2025 season, including perennial favorite Oklahoma, historical powerhouse Utah and UCLA and Missouri for the first time finalists.

    LSU, 2024 champions, who gave the regular season the number 1 rank and won the SEC conference title last month, stunned in the second session of the day, and the UCLA was the second place by the UCLA by 2125 of one point. The team was destroyed as the final score flash on the team’s screen, which was sealing their fate. The session winner was 0.2375 of a point behind Utah.

    UCLA head coach Genel McDonald said, “Tonight’s competition was completely everything you can expect in a national championship.” “It was such a neck and neck and just such a fight for every event and every routine. It was an incredible meeting.”

    Florida, which ends the regular season at number 3, was also sent home early, when the gates finished third during the first session.

    Jordan Bovers of Oklahoma won the all-round title with 39.7125, making Utah’s Grace McCallum, the partner soon defeated Vishwas Torage and Jade Kerry of Oreg State.

    Who wore more on Thursday? And who took the home event title? If you missed any action, we have covered you.

    Return of sides

    Oklahoma Sooners knew that all eyes were entering the first semi -finals of Thursday, and for a good reason. During last year’s semi -finals, the team was watching to win the title of their third straight NCAA team, and as a favorite to do so.

    But after the team recorded three important landing errors during their first rotation on the vault, the dreams of Suuners were destroyed and handed over to one of the most shocking upsets in the recent memory. Since then, head coach KJ Kindleer said that he had 364 long days of what happened and the bombing was done with the footage of the competition.

    The irony is that, and perhaps poeticly, Suuners had to complete Thursday’s meeting on the vault, but two all-rounders of Torage and Bover-Tim, who both struggled on the incident last year, insisted the-Sanvadas that they did not bid them farewell.

    And that strategy worked. No one fell on the incident, and Oklahoma recorded a session-secretary at 49.2750 on the vault to go to the first semi-finals with 197.5500. A senior and anchor Bovers of the event had a team-high 9.8875, the second highest score in the first semi-finals.

    Both Bovers and Torage also scored 9.95 runs on their floor routine – enough for the second place – to lift the team and continue searching for the seventh National Championship.

    Kindleer did not help the media in his initial comments last year, but addressed the meeting on Thursday.

    “I never want to see Oklahoma’s TV footage again falling on the vault,” Kindler said. “He is a dragon and we’re lasting it.”

    Kindleer said he was proud of the team, but he admitted that it was far from his best performance and he knew he could do better.

    “We were definitely not our best,” said Kindleer. “It seemed that we were competing with some weight on our shoulders. So we needed to compete with greater freedom, more confidence.”

    History for Missouri

    Entering the competition, Missouri never proceeded in the final, and the best result in the NCAA Championship was fifth. But all this turned on some standout demonstrations and Helen Hu’s meat-clining heroics on Thursday.

    Missouri shut down the day on the beam, struggling with the routine in the final rotation with Florida. And all of this came down to Hu, at the event the last gymnast of the tigers and a beam expert who returned to the team for the fifth year after leaving 2024.

    When she moved on the beam when a quarter of a quarter of the tenth, she was almost innocent, earned 9.9875 to finish the second place of the team and punched her first ticket in the final. He also won the NCAA beam title.

    The team started celebrating as soon as the score of HUTU was shown on Jambotron – and again when Florida’s final score appeared shortly after. Missouri eventually staged Florida, 197.3000 – 197.200.

    Members of the Missouri team can be heard shouting and cheering in the celebration even after a long time after the meeting at the hallway of the arena near the locker room. Hu said that she was unaware of what score she needed after competing.

    Hu later said, “I just go in, this is my beam routine, whether we need it or not, I am going up and do what I always do.” “And so I really didn’t know what the situation was. And when we tampered with and said ‘We can make it or not, we could be proud of what we did today.’ And I agreed with it, and then perhaps after 10 seconds, the score became pop up and I just got completely shocked.

    Head coach Shannon Velkar – who jokingly said that he was late in his news conference because he was re -sustaining his contract – he said he was proud that his team did what he did, but was not surprised.

    Velkar said, “I really felt that it was a special team this year, and we got the opportunity to become the best team at the University of Missouri Gymnastics History, and this would mean that we had to be at least fifth. It was our highest.” “So today we have been clearly more than this, but it is very good to see that what I thought can really come out … (I) I am really excited on Saturday.”

    Fight for night

    How tight was Thursday’s night session? All four teams were within K.1875 K.1875, a point entering the Utah, UCLA, LSU and Michigan states – final rotation. And Utah, UCLA and LSU were all within a point K.0750. Needless to say, the crowd seemed to live with every routine and every score and breathe.

    But it was Utah and UCLA that came to the top of the red rocks, which was behind the brave efforts on bars and the impressive performance of Bruins on the beam. Both teams were happy when the final score was shown and realized what it meant. McCallum closed it for Utah with 9.9625 and Emma Malabuyo did the same with a huge 9.975 for UCLA.

    Amy Morgan of Utah said that everyone knew how close it was, but neither he, nor by her companions, to influence her performance or confidence.

    Morgan said, “I think this is always one thing in gymnastics, ‘Keep your eyes on your own team and don’t care about anyone else,” but at a certain point, you realize that it is very close. ” “But I think for this entire season, we have not really doubted, and I know a lot for ourselves and all our teams, we had no doubt that we were not going to make it. And even though it was close, I think we knew that we could do this. We knew that we are good and I think we thought we had done.”

    Utah, the nine-time NCAA Champion, and UCLA, NCAA Champion, now returned to the familiar area and both will look back to bring back the final hardware on Saturday. This will be a long time to come for both, but especially Utah, which has not won since 1995. The UCLA finally claimed the title in 2018.

    Event champion

    In addition to the Bovers, three other gymnasts became individual NCAA Champions on Thursday, claiming the winning beam of the all-round title and Hu.

    While this was a disappointing night for LSUs overall, Kelin Chio still managed to shut down his Herald Freshman season with top podium spots on the vault with 9.975 for his Eurchenko 1.5.

    The UCLA chIles, already twice NCAA Champion and Olympic gold medalist, received top honors on uneven bars with a single 9.975. The thrilling reaction of the chirs showed how much it matters to her after teasing her double layout.

    game

    0:41

    Jordan Chiles Bar brought in tears after landing on the bar routine

    Jordan Chiles once landed on the routine and are emotional by hugging their coaches.

    And Brooklyn Moore, the team’s teammates and a fellow Olympian, a minor with the routine of his sensational floor, rescued his first national championship, which is longer praise and high score in all seasons. He earned 9.9625 on the first incident of UCLA night. Moore called personal honor “Cherry at the top”, but said that the real award is taking place with his team to go to Saturday’s finals.

    “We are here to do for the team,” said Moore. “And I think I say it every time (but) This team is something special and when we keep it together, it is quite surprising.”

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