Mizzou gymnastics headed to Washington for NCAA Regional action
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Mizzou gymnastics team will make a trip to Seattle, Washington at the beginning of April for NCAA Regional action as the No. 7 ranked team in the nation.
MU will compete out in Seattle as the two-seed in that NCAA Regional, which marks the best placement in program history.
The Tigers will compete in an SEC-loaded regional, which also includes No. 2 Oklahoma, No. 10 Georgia and No. 15 Auburn. While it will be battle, head coach Shannon Welker said their conference slate prepared his team for this very moment.
"We knew this was a possibility with so many good SEC teams in that Top-16, that are all seeded. So, I think we were prepared to see a lot of those teams in our conference," Welker said. "I definitely think we've had a really tough schedule and that's certainly going to prepare us well for the postseason."
You can watch the full press conference with Coach Welker in the video player below.
In total, nine Southeastern Conference teams earned a spot in NCAA Regionals. All nine of those squads also earned a Top-16 seed.
2025 marks the 10th-consecutive season that Mizzou has qualified for NCAA Regional competition and is also the fourth-straight year that the program has earned a Top-16 seed. However, the Tigers have an opportunity to make some history this time around.
Mizzou has had plenty of individual athletes qualify for the NCAA Championships, but now hopes to make its first-ever appearance in a National Championship as a program.
"Step one is we got to get our team into the regional final. Step two is we got to get out of that regional final and get to Dallas, right. Look, our best finish in school history is fifth...and we feel like if we are at our best we can be one of those teams competing on that last day of the season, which we be kind of like our Final Four," he said.
The Tigers will enter NCAA Regional action fresh off of a strong performance in the night session of the SEC Championships in Birmingham, Alabama over the weekend. MU finished fourth in the conference championship with a score of 197.400.
There were a couple of show-stopping performances for Mizzou in the SEC Championships, too. Helen Hu claimed a share of the SEC beam champion title, after posting a 9.925. Then, Mara Titarsolej captured her first perfect score of the 2025 campaign to lift her to a share of the SEC title on the bars.
"They're veterans. It was really cool to see them show up at the right time, in the right moment and just really bring their best in there. I was really happy for them, too, because I really think they are some of the best gymnasts in the country, so to see them capitalize on that on that stage, at SEC Championships, was very rewarding," Welker said.
Coach Welker said he'd be lying if he didn't say there is a slight mentality shift when you head into NCAA Regional action, but added that his team has done well enough this season that the shift will be very minor. At this point, it's all about fine-tuning a couple of things.
He said that his team has been better on beam this season, compared to what they came out with in the SEC Championships. The group ended up with a 49.125 team score on that event in Birmingham, but Welker expects that his team will do better on that apparatus, come April.
"It really wasn't that bad," he said. "It was a little tight scoring, first event up, so I think we can do a little bit better there. You know, we've been doing better on vault. I think we had some really good vaults, we just were a little off on vaults two through four, so we just got to clean those up a little bit and get back to what we've been doing the last three to four weeks. Honestly, if we're a couple of tenths better on beam and a couple of tenths better on vault, we're fighting for the third spot in that meet."
Mizzou is entering the time of year where perfection is necessary in order to get where you want to be. Coach Welker talked about just how much parody there is in this league this season.
"We've been in the Top-10 for every week this year, except for one and that was early on. I mean, that tells you the level that we're competing with, as well. You know, we have an opportunity to get 10's on every event. We got three this year on three different events, so you have to be really good at this level and I certainly think that our Tigers can do that."
Mizzou will compete in the Second Round of NCAA Regional action on April 4 in Seattle, Washington. The hope is to advance to the Regional Final on April 4. After that, the team would book a ticket to Dallas, Texas for the NCAA Semifinals and beyond.
