LSU wins women's gymnastics national championship over Cal, Utah, Florida

The LSU women’s gymnastics team is bringing home a national title, besting a crowded field of competitors. And it helps LSU shed an ignominious title: The best program to never be national champions.

That reality is no longer. And the Tigers got over the hump by a narrow margin.

The Tigers were pushed to the edge by Cal, Utah and Florida, but neither of the Pac-12 outfits or their SEC rival could match the team effort from the Tigers.

“I love these kids so much and they did everything we asked them to, all year long,” head coach Jay Clark said on the ABC broadcast after the win. “They never complained, they were unselfish when they needed to be but it was hard, from time to time. We weren’t without adversity and we caught some breaks and made it interesting sometimes, but it feels fantastic and I’m just so happy for them. I’m speechless.”

LSU won with a final match score of 198.225. Cal finished in second place with 197.85, Utah finished third with 197.80 and Florida came fourth with 197.4375.

It was a tight race for the lead right to the very end and the Tigers needed a strong performance on the beam during the fourth and final rotation in order to secure the title. The job fell to Aleah Finnegan to close out the match for the Tigers, and she delivered.

“We’ve all worked so hard this entire season and I looked to them before I went and we just wanted this so bad. I wanted it for them,” Finnegan said on ABC after the win.

And not only did the Tigers perform well enough on the beam, they set a school record with the score on Saturday.

“Well it just shows what they’re made of, where they do it for the right reasons,” Clark said of setting the record to win the title. “The character and the integrity I’ve talked about all year long with who they are. They’re doing it for each other, they’re doing it for those three letters. It’s true. It’s not just coach speak. And we talk about it all the time. And when you can get out of your own head and not make it about yourself, special things can happen and man, I don’t know what else to say.”

And along with the team title, one of LSU’s top gymnasts, all-around star Haleigh Bryant, went home with the all-around title.

It’s some hardware she’s happy to claim, but the team title was always the bigger goal.

“I don’t even think I can put it into words,” Bryant said on ABC. “This is literally the moment we have dreamed about since we stepped foot on this campus as freshmen. And we worked so hard and just sacrificed so much and I just have no words. We fought to the very end. It wasn’t over until it was over and we got there.”