Jay Clark 'incredibly optimistic' about next year's LSU team

The LSU Tigers won this year’s women’s gymnastics national championship. A large part of that was because of the success of the team’s seniors, which in turn means head coach Jay Clark needs to find a way to replace their production.

Despite that challenge facing Clark, he’s going into the offseason incredibly optimistic about next year’s LSU gymnastics team.

“I feel really good about the team we have coming back next year,” Jay Clark said. “Their role will continue to increase and get more and more. I think they’re tremendous, but I feel incredibly optimistic about what we have coming back and the freshman class that’s coming in. I’m excited.”

LSU had 11 gymnasts listed on its roster this season as either a senior or a graduate student. That included some massive names like Haleigh Bryant, Kiya Johnson, and Livvy Dunne.

Bryant, in particular, had a massive performance to win the championship, putting up a high score of 9.95 on the vault. Overall, her lowest score was 9.875 on the bars. She and Johnson were the only two Tigers to compete in all four rotations, with Johnson’s lowest score being 9.8875 on the bars.

Despite those big losses, Jay Clark is right in saying LSU has plenty of talent still on the roster. Aleah Finnegan is only a junior and she competed in three of four rotations. Then, Konnor McClain is an incredibly exciting freshman who competed in three rotations and had the best balance beam score for the night with a 9.9625.

It doesn’t seem like LSU is going away anytime soon. For now, though, the Tigers are going to enjoy this national championship.

LSU star Kiya Johnson describes emotions of battling back from injury to win national championship

Kiya Johnson suffered through injuries to get to where she is today. That included tearing her left Achilles tendon in high school before tearing her right Achilles tendon in January of 2023. Still, she battled back and is now a national champion.

“It’s kind of hard to put into words right now because it all just happened, but truly throughout that process my teammates were there for me literally every single day,” Johnson explained.

“So that kept me going. Then also envisioning this happening today. That was also a goal and a dream that I kept in the back of my mind. So for it to come to a head here is crazy. I can’t put it into words.”