Mizzou gymnastics cleans up in SEC awards. Team heads to Seattle for NCAA regionals soon

For the sixth straight season — excluding the COVID-affected 2020 campaign — the Missouri Tigers gymnastics team is heading to an NCAA regional.

Mizzou, ranked seventh in the Road to Nationals rankings, earned the No. 2 seed in the regional — the highest placement in program history. The Tigers will compete in a second-round quad against No. 10 Georgia, No. 21 Arizona and No. 26 Arizona State at noon April 4 at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle.

No. 29 Illinois will face No. 35 UC Davis in the first round at noon April 3. The winner of that dual will compete in a second-round session against No. 2 Oklahoma — the top seed in the regional — No. 15 Auburn and No. 20 Nebraska at 8 p.m. April 4.

The two top teams from each second-round session will advance to the regional final at 4 p.m. April 6, and the top two finishers in the regional final will advance to the national championship April 17-19 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Individual all-around and event specialists from Illinois State and Washington will also compete in Seattle for a chance to advance to the national championship.

Last season, Mizzou advanced to the Gainesville Regional final but finished that quad third to miss out on a berth to nationals.

MU finished fourth in the SEC Championship Saturday night, the Tigers’ highest placement in the meet.

“We’ve been up against many of those teams this year, so we feel like we’ve got a lot of confidence going into a mini-SEC Championship,” Mizzou coach Shannon Welker said of the upcoming regional competition.

“We’re excited about that first day. We got Georgia, who we’ve seen a couple of times this year. They’re getting better, so we’ll have to bring good competition that first day. But I feel like we can come out of that regional and get ourselves to Fort Worth.”

Coach, gymnasts claim top SEC honors

Welker on Wednesday was honored as Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year and Missouri redshirt senior Hu earned SEC Event Specialist of the Year honors.

Hu and fellow Tigers gymnasts Amari Celestine (Wildomar, Calif.), Jocelyn Moore (Hillsborough, N.J.) and Mara Titarsolej (Zutphen, Netherlands) were also named to the All-SEC Team.

It’s the second time Welker has been so recognized by fellow coaches across the league.

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