No longer playing with house money, the ambush is ready for what’s to come

Finish in the top two or go home. It’s that simple.

It all comes down to this. What they’ve been working for all season. Who’s excited?! Being able to cover the team so closely this season has been a true joy, and the media who has been around the whole time — me, Nate, Grace — have gotten to know this group so well. We’ve seen the incredible culture and the unrelenting work ethic right in front of our eyes, and we have watched as they’ve exceeded goal after goal.

.500 record in SEC with the inclusion of OU? Check. Undefeated at home? Check. Score a 198? Check. Set program highs on multiple events? Check. Finish regular season with two events in Top 4 nationally? Check. Make evening session of SEC Championships? Check. Advance to the NCAA Semifinal for the third time in program history? Check. Advance to team’s first NCAA Championship Final? To Be Determined.

“We’ve got an opportunity and we’re going to seize the day here, because this is tough to get to this point, right?” Mizzou head coach Shannon Welker said during media availability last week. “I think you just, you got to capitalize on every opportunity. And I think this is a huge opportunity from a personal standpoint, but also from a program. And for these young ladies that have worked so hard to get there.”

What are we waiting for? Let’s get to it.

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Meet Info

When: Thursday, April 17, 2025

Where: Dickies Arena | Fort Worth, Texas

Time: 3:30 p.m. CST

TV: ESPN2

Stats: Virtius

MIZZOU ORDER OF EVENTS: Floor —> Vault —> Bars —> Beam

“I think this, in postseason, is like the fifth time (we’ve started on floor), because I think they did it twice last year at the Florida regional,” Welker said. “We did day one and day two, and then we just did it again, day one and day two, and now we’re doing it again. So we’re gonna be really good. I mean, I think you got to look at it like that, and I think we feel super comfortable. It’s an event we’re really good at. We’re starting on a great event. You know, I think you can spin it really however you want, but I do think the repetition of doing that rotation will pay off for us and ending on beam, too. You know, we’ve ended on beam quite a bit in the regular season, at away meets. We always end up being right in a duel. And so we just did it. I think we’re comfortable with that, and we’re excited to do it, run it back again, and so hopefully we’ll get to do that same rotation in the Final Four.”

Format: The top two teams from Semifinal I will advance to Four on the Floor on Saturday and take on the top two teams from Thursday night’s Semifinal II (LSU, Michigan State, UCLA, Utah). Missouri will start on Floor, Alabama on Vault, Oklahoma on Bars, and Florida on Beam.

About the Venue: Dickies Arena has been the home of the NCAA National Gymnastics Championships since 2018. Prior to this, it was St. Louis, Mo for two years. I will never forgive my hometown for giving up this event. NEVER. Operation “Bring NCAA Gym Back to The Lou” begins now. The arena seats somewhere between 12,200 and 13,550 for hockey/basketball, so I’d estimate the gym capacity to be somewhere in that range.

Fun Fact: Per wikipedia, Dickies Arena has the second-largest, continuous 360-degree screen in North America. The scoreboard extends past the width of the basketball court, and measures 105 feet wide and 25 feet tall.

This meet, of course, will be set up podium-style, and the Tigers have familiarity with this already as it was a similar setup to Zou to the Lou. There will be six judges, and the top and bottom scores will be removed, leaving the middle four to be averaged.

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Last Time On The Mats

You’re just going to need to read my recap, titled “They believed they could so they did.” It’s some of my best work, I’m told. This one was a real barn burner, and it quite literally came down to the final performance in the final rotation. I think I lost a decent number of years off my life. Nevertheless, the Tigers persisted, and they are one of two Tiger teams still standing.

FIRST ROTATION— FLOOR 49.550 | so. Rayna Light 9.875 | so. Hannah Horton 9.90 | fr. Kaia Tanskanen 9.875 | sr. Amari Celestine 9.90 | so. Kennedy Griffin 9.925 | sr. Jocelyn Moore 9.95

Oklahoma starts strong on bars, beating their R2 score, Arizona did okay, but the star of rotation was Auburn, who stuck 4/6 vaults, much to Mizzou fans’ dismay.

After 1: OU 49.650 | MIZ 49.55 | AUB 49.45 | AZ 48.85

SECOND ROTATION— VAULT 49.300 | Griffin 9.80 | Tanskanen 9.85 (career high) | RS-jr. Elise Tisler 9.80 | Horton 9.95 (ties CH) | Moore 9.825 | Celestine 9.875

Auburn beats its R2 score, but gained no ground on MIZ. Oklahoma added to its lead after beam, and Arizona had a really nice vault rotation.

After 2: OU 99.175 | MIZ 98.850 | AUB 98.725 | AZ | 98.150

THIRD ROTATION— BARS 49.300 | gr. Kyra Burns 9.825 | Horton 9.75 | Moore 9.825 | fr. Olivia Kelly 9.85 | Celestine 9.85 | gr. Mara Titarsolej 9.95

Weird bars rotation for Mizzou, who earns a lower score than I think anyone thought, but adds to Auburn lead after they have an okay beam rotation. Oklahoma sets a program record on floor with a 49.800, while Arizona scores a sub-49 vault rotation.

After 3: OU 148.975 | MIZ 148.150 | AUB 147.950 | AZ 147.05

FINAL ROTATION— BEAM 49.275 | RS-jr. Amy Wier 8.925 (fall) | Celestine 9.825 | fr. Railey Jackson 9.85 | jr. Addi Lawrence 9.85 | Kelly 9.825 | RS-sr. Helen Hu 9.925

This is where it got crazy. Oklahoma easily takes the win, but the fight between Mizzou & Auburn intensifies after Mizzou records a fall in the leadoff spot. From there it was neck-and-neck, going down to Helen vs. Sophia Groth. We know how it turned out.

After 4: Oklahoma (198.450) and Mizzou (197.425) advances. Auburn 197.325 and Arizona 196.250 take third and fourth, respectively.

OVERALL: We asked Mara to describe what it was like watching those last five beam routines. “I think that took 20 years off my life,” she said, laughing. “That was so nerve wracking. I mean, obviously we’ve been seeing those girls so I had a lot of trust in them, but I didn’t see Amy’s routine (the fall), so I didn’t know what happened…Then I walked back to the corral, and we were all just holding hands and screaming our lungs out for everybody else to come. It was just really exciting to see them all go up there and absolutely kill it. Those were great routines, and maybe that’s what we needed. Maybe we just needed that little bit of extra excitement, you know?”

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Get to Know Your Favorite Team

It’s all about the culture at Mizzou. “I do think we out-culture people,” Shannon said to the assembled media after Regional Finals. “I think we out-heart them and out-culture them. And I think tonight [April 6], that paid off. I think it’s really cool to see things come to fruition that you have worked so hard to plan out. We put so much effort into it (and) it just takes so much from a lot of people.”

They call themselves the “Ambush.” And the ambush is undeniable. “Iron sharpens iron, right? I think when we have the talent that we have, they just get pushed by their teammates. I think that the biggest competition is right here in this facility.”

“Ambush is just like our Tiger family; a group of tigers is an ambush,” Elise Tisler told us last week. “And so we really latched on to that this year, that, you know, we are one cohesive group. It doesn’t take one person to win a gymnastics meet. There’s 24 routines that go up. There’s 22 of us on our team. And it takes every single person, whether they’re in that lineup spot or removing mats. We’re cheering, we’re giving it our all. And it takes every single person in and out of the gym to get where we are. And I think it goes back to our team culture. We’ve really latched on to that ambush, and that we truly are this amazing family.”

It was the ambush’s determination that got them to this moment. Their unrelenting pursuit of excellence. All the preparation of their minds and bodies. “The beauty of being on a team, is that we don’t have to go through all of this ourselves,” senior Amari Celestine said after Regional Finals when asked about following her teammate’s fall in the leadoff position. “So just trusting in my own training, knowing that my teammates know I have their back, and know that my teammates had confidence in myself. All I had to do was believe in myself as well.”

Missouri will be known as the team that’s “playing with house money,” but they’ve been here before. In 2022, in fact. When we talked to Shannon last week about the differences between that team and this one, he said, “Well, I think we were just kind of getting going into this process. I feel like that 21-22 kind of year right in there right after COVID, that was when we really made some changes from kind of top down, and I think they just started to pay off in that year, you know. And you know, we have some pretty talented seniors that were freshmen that year, too, and so I think that obviously helped, too. But we had some culture changes. Along with we obviously had an influx of talented young women come in that year too, so I think some teams kind of opened the door for us quite a bit in that regional final. Now we step through it. Now this year, I feel like we’ve opened the door ourselves, right? We were opening our own doors. And I think we’ve got an opportunity to go a little bit further this year.”

Missouri has had a great season, and are trending way up, especially in the last month or so of the season. Five weeks ago on the road at Florida, the Tigers scored a 197.725, which was a season high, and should have been a good 0.50 higher, but I digress. The following week, at home vs. Auburn, they attained the elusive and awesome 198.100, which obviously set a new program record, and Mizzou became one of only five teams in the country at the time (now there’s seven) to earn a 198 score this season. And then in the final week of the regular season, they scored a 197.800 on the road at Arkansas, which was their third highest is program history. Against an Arkansas team who previously knocked off no. 2 Florida and no. 2 LSU at Bud Walton. Not too shabby, eh? Qualifying for the evening session of the SEC Championships for the first time ever, the Tigers finished fourth in a program record score of 197.400, and that was with some suspect scoring. After securing the no. 7-seed, they moved on to the NCAA Regional round in Seattle where they defeated SEC rival (and favorite if you ask the gymternet) Georgia, Arizona and Arizona State to move on to the Regional Final with an unranked Arizona team.

College Gymnastics News gave Missouri a moniker of Dark Horse, giving them just a 16.78% chance to advance. (Rude.) They do, however, love that the Tigers are starting on floor and think that will give them an advantage in their semi.

Sam Peszek told Inside Gymnastics that teams should pay attention to the Tigers.

“I’m scared of them, because they’re one of those teams that has nothing to lose at NCAA championships,” Peszek said. “I think Regionals, they competed a little tight. You could see a little bit of nerves, but Missouri in particular, I think they’ve got something really special this year. And they have the high-flying gymnastics, they have the difficulty, and it’s just, can they get those landings?”

For funsies, they also ran a simulation of sorts for individual events, and Helen has the best odds (unsurprisingly) of winning a national title, coming in second with a 22.34% chance to win beam, behind Jade Carey’s 29.60%. Mara has the fourth highest odds (10.37%) of winning the bars title, behind Grace McCallum (33.83%), Jordan Bowers (12.12%) and Leanne Wong (11.24%), and Kennedy has the ninth best odds of winning floor (5.78%).

Below is a graphic of the team’s season high scores, as well as a list of career bests. Lotsa green this year (which indicates a career best or tying a career best).

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Quick Comparisons

The top two are normal charts I’ve used all season, identifying high scores (top) and NQS (middle). OU nabbed a high score on beam in Rd 2 and a high score on floor in the Reg Final, so I’ve reflected those changes. NQS, or the National Qualifying Score, has not been updated since March 31. Now, the two regional scores have been added together to determine rankings of the Elite 8 and is reflected in the bottom chart, along with their scores in the second round and regional finals.

I used one of Virtius’ features to identify the average score on each apparatus at Regionals. What can I say, I LOVE data, and I think it’s just a fun thing to look at and the results may surprise you.

SEC CHAMPIONSHIPS (Birmingham, AL)

• Vault: 1) UF- 9.900 | 2) OU- 9.885 | 3) BAMA- 9.860 | 4) MIZ- 9.820
• Bars: 1) UF 9.970 | 2) MIZ- 9.915 | 3) OU- 9.910 | 4) BAMA- 9.855
• Beam: 1) OU- 9.895 | 2) BAMA- 9.855 | 3) MIZ- 9.825 | 4) UF- 9.820
• Floor: 1) MIZ- 9.920| 2) OU- 9.895 | 3) UF- 9.875 | 4) BAMA- 9.850

ROUND 2 (MIZ/OU- Seattle; UF/AL- Tuscaloosa)

• Vault: 1) UF 9.900 | 2) MIZ- 9.845 | 2) OU- 9.835 | 4) BAMA- 9.830
• Bars: 1) UF- 9.915 | 2) MIZ- 9.910 | 2) OU- 9.905 | 4) BAMA- 9.860
• Beam: 1) OU- 9.940 | 2) MIZ & UF- 9.915 | 4) BAMA- 9.845
• Floor: 1) OU- 9.925 | 2) BAMA- 9.920 | 3) UF- 9.915 | 4) MIZ- 9.860

REGIONAL FINAL (MIZ/OU- Seattle; UF/AL- Tuscaloosa)

• Vault: 1) OU 9.895 | 2) UF- 9.870 | 3) MIZ- 9.860 | 4) BAMA- 9.835
• Bars: 1) OU- 9.930 | 2) UF- 9.910 | 3) BAMA- 9.895 | 4) MIZ- 9.860
• Beam: 1) OU- 9.905 | 2) BAMA- 9.90 | 3) UF- 9.860 | 4) MIZ- 9.855
• Floor: 1) OU 9.960 | 2) MIZ- 9.910 | 3) BAMA- 9.905 | 4) UF- 9.90

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Opponent Overview Who’s in the Way

• Oklahoma Sooners (27-2, 7-1 SEC): Leads the country in NQS and an army of leotard-wearing former five stars and All-Americans at their disposal. They also are on a redemption mission of sorts after what we’ll refer to as “The Sooners’ House of Horrors” last year where they completely botched this very meet, counting major mistakes on vault as well as a couple falls on beam. They call themselves underdogs, which really, if that gets you motivated, more power to you, but no one else in this entire country is going to think that THIS team is an underdog. They come into this meet as the SEC Championship runner-up, and had the top score across all the NCAA Regionals. They scored a program high (and maybe NCAA high?) 49.800 on floor in the regional final and earned four tens in that meet. FOUR. IN ONE MEET. And three came from Jordan Bowers, who going into the meet had yet to earn a 10 this season.

The Sooners ended the regular season with the third highest score in the country, a 198.475, which they scored March 14 on the road in Athens. For being one of the undisputed top teams in the country, it is weird to me that it took them til Week 6 to reach the 198 threshold, and then proceeded to hit it in 4/5 meets after that. In total, through 11 weeks of regular season competition, OU has scored six 197.55-197.925 scores and four 198+ scores. (UPDATE: They also two more 198 scores in the regional rounds.)

“People like to challenge us—like, their goal is to beat Oklahoma,” KJ Kindler told Inside Gymnastics magazine. I wear that fact like a badge of honor. You can say whatever you want about us, put whatever motivations on us you imagine, but at the end of the day that’s something we’ve earned by being the best. “

Until Regional Finals with Jordan’s triple 10s (is it called a hat trick in gymnastics?), only one individual, Faith Torrez, has scored a 10 this season. She’s twice scored 10s on floor (2/21 vs. Florida; 3/22 SEC Champs), and then added to her stack of perfect scores with a 10 on beam in round 2 and one on floor in finals of Regionals.

KJ Kindler used a confusing (to some of us, anyway) strategy this season in which she deployed five all-arounders— Audrey Davis, Jordan Bowers, Faith Torrez, Addison Fatta, and Lily Pederson — almost exclusively for most of the season, and then added a customary sixth person to the rotation. I mean, it worked, don’t get me wrong, as they kept winning and scoring crazy good scores, but while Mizzou, for instance, worked others in and out of the lineups to keep them fresh, KJ just kept them going full bore week in and week out for the most part, with the exception of Audrey Davis who was pulled off vault in late February, and freshman Lily Pederson, who was pulled off floor in early March. I guess the good thing is, when you’ve got a team full of five-stars, you can easily swap in and swap out, as they’ve shown in some cases.

If the Sooners have a weakness, it’s vault, just as it was a year ago. Mizzou, also not the best vaulting team, actually outscored them on vault in Round 2. So, cross your fingers for poor vaults. They will start the meet on bars.

• Florida Gators (21-5, 5-3 SEC): Ahhh, the Gators, the ones who I think Missouri has the best chance of knocking off in this semi despite having perhaps the highest ceiling of any team in the country, and the fact that they are eying their fifth final four in a row. Listen — I’m repeating this from my SEC preview — I love the athletes on this Florida team and enjoy watching them so this is nothing against them, but their scoring this season has been out of control. It’s bonkers at times, so it honestly makes it hard for me to evaluate their season, and also makes me think, despite the fact that they hold the highest score in the NCAA this season — a 198.625 set at home in their final meet vs. Kentucky— that they are the ripest for a takedown. Why? They’ve just been really inconsistent all season; some could be due to injuries, but also, you just never seem to not know what Florida Gators team you’re going to get. Week 1 it was a 196.675 at home. Week 2, it was a 197.45 on the road. Week 3, it was a 198.125 at home, when they became the first team to reach the threshold this season. But the following weeks it was a 197.575, then a 196.625, then a 197.625, then another 196.625. Like, WHAT is this team?! The last three weeks of the regular season, however, they were a 198 team, scoring 198.125, 198.025 and then that massive 198.625.

But then… they barely made it out of the Tuscaloosa Regional Final, scoring a 197.700 with two other teams within 0.125 in Cal and other semis competitor, Alabama. When away from the friendly confines of The Swamp and googly-eyed judges, they may lose their luster a bit. One can hope, anyway.

In a preview of sorts by ESPN’s D’arcy Maine, she talked with my nemesis (lol) John Roethlisberger, who had this to say. “Florida might have the highest ceiling of any team in the NCAA championships,” Roethlisberger said. “But they’ve also had some fluctuations. They went to bars at SEC championships and put up a NCAA record score and then they go to beam and they had, for their standards — a lot of other teams across the country might love their beam — but for them it was a big step back and they ended up third.”

Of note apparatus-wise, the Gators have been sub-49 twice this season on beam, and while they’ve seemingly leveled off with good beam rotations the final two weeks of the regular season (49.6 range), the potential for issues is looming, and they start on beam. I love that for them (she says diabolically). Vault spent much of the season hovering around the 49.30-49.45 range before topping out at an astronomical and sorry, undeserved, 49.700. YOU CANNOT SCORE THAT HIGH WHEN YOU DON’T STICK ALL YOUR VAULTS. IT’S SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE. [rant over.] As for floor, they’ve spent much of the season scoring in the 49.50 to 49.625 range before popping off for a 49.725 (that’s Mizzou’s high score!) in the final meet. And with bars, they’ve most commonly scored in the 49.5 range (4 scores b/t 49.525-49.575). There were a few dropoffs in there as well, but not since mid-season, and at SECs, they famously scored an astronomical 49.850 that featured two 10s and three 9.95 scores. I mean…

• Alabama Crimson Tide (14-14, 1-7 SEC) is kind of the black sheep of the bunch with the lowest scoring ceiling and the only team in the national semis who’s was not ranked in the top 8 at the end of the regular season (they were 12th). As of just a few weeks ago, the Tide(s) had changed and they almost didn’t even make SECs, let alone advance this far. They’ve been on a roller coaster this season, battling a ton of inconsistency that left them with just one SEC win from a team that many touted as a favorite to make it back to Nationals. Well, here they are, doubters be damned.

However, it must be mentioned that they have their home venue to thank for some of those scores that got them here in the regional rounds. They not only scored their season high overall (197.675), but also their season high on beam and floor and second highest on bars. Some may call that peaking at the right time, and they are doing well right now and have dug themselves out of a hole, but others will say… well. The team site basically called attention to it, stating that ‘of the 17 times Alabama has hosted an NCAA Regional, the Tide has never finished as low as second place.’

Per Rolltide.com, head coach Ashley Johnston said after the Regional Final, “First of all, I am just so proud of this group for qualifying to the Elite Eight. This has been a huge goal in front of us and week after week, we have talked about never losing the hope, belief or confidence that this team can do it. No matter what anybody on the outside was telling us, they continued to work relentlessly to figure out any, and all, ways to get better and find our edge. I have to say it was our culture – what they’ve created together and the connection within each person, and their own connection to the mission that I really believe was what drove us to come out on the side that we wanted to be on.”

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Mizzou Individual Stats & Honors

SEC Champions: Mara Titarsolej, bars (shared w/ UF’s Leanne Wong & Riley McCusker) | Helen Hu, beam (shared with LSU’s Haleigh Bryant & Aleah Finnegan, OU’s Faith Torrez)

SEC Silver Medalists: Kennedy Griffin & Jocelyn Moore, floor (shared w/ LSU’s Kailin Chio, Amari Drayton & Haleigh Bryant, OU’s Jordan Bowers)

WCGA All-Americans: Helen Hu (1st Team Beam) | Mara Titarsolej (1st Team Bars) | Amari Celestine (2nd Team, All-Around & Floor) | Jocelyn Moore (2nd Team Floor) | Kennedy Griffin (2nd Team, Floor)

All-Conference honorees: Shannon Welker (SEC Coach of the Year) | Helen Hu (SEC Specialist of the Year) | Helen Hu, beam | Mara Titarsolej, bars | Amari Celestine, all-around & floor) | Jocelyn Moore, floor

NQS Regular Top 25 Rankings: Hannah Horton (18) Vault | Amari Celestine (24) and Mara Titarsolej (4) Bars | Helen Hu (2) Beam | Kennedy Griffin (14), Amari Celestine (11) & Jocelyn Moore (10) Floor | Amari Celestine (15) All-Around

Seattle Regional Champions: Helen Hu, beam (shared w/ OU’s Faith Torrez) | Hannah Horton, bars (shared w/ AUB’s Olivia Greaves, NEB’s Emma Spence, OU’s Audrey Davis, Faith Torrez & Jordan Bowers) | Amari Celestine (outright title winner)

WCGA South Central Region honorees: Amari Celestine, Co-Gymnast of the Year (shared w/ OU’s Faith Torrez) | Shannon Welker, Coach of the Year

Records To Watch

• Nationals High Score: 197.200 in NCAA Nationals Session II, April 14, 2022
• Balance Beam: 49.575, broken three times this season (at ARK in March 2025, SEC Champs in March 2025, Seattle Regionals Rd 2, April 2025)
• Uneven Bars: 49.600, scored at Mizzou Quad, March 10, 2024
• Vault: 49.500, scored at Illinois Quad, March 17, 2024
• Floor Exercise: 49.725, scored at Zou to the Lou, February 14, 2025
• Overall Score: 198.100, scored vs. Auburn, March 9, 2025

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Final Thoughts

We asked Shannon last week about his message to the group about going to Nationals and how to manage all that. He said, “Well, listen, I think we’re playing, you know, some people might say, ‘Hey, you’re playing with house money at this time, those teams are really good in that session.’ Well, all eight teams are really good… I’ve said it before, and I’m gonna say it again. I think if we’re on we’re hitting on all cylinders, we give ourselves a shot at competing on the last day of the season, in that final four for the gymnastics community, right here. So I really, truly believe that we do, Now I think that some other teams can give us some help. We’ll take it, but, but listen, we just control our I think we just control our own destiny and give ourselves the best shot and getting there. And you know, if we make that final day, then, hey, we get to compete for a national title.”

I am so ready for this damn meet to get started. OH MY GOD.

LET’S F’ING GO!!!!!!