LSU gymnastics advances to the NCAA national championship final

BATON ROUGE – LSU gymnastics will compete for a national championship this weekend.

The Tigers, after squeaking into the NCAA semifinals on a sixth-score tiebreaker in the NCAA regional final, finished first among four teams in the semifinals on Thursday with a score of 197.475.

LSU will compete for the national title in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday (3 p.m., ABC).

LSU competed in the first of two semifinal sessions on Thursday. Florida finished in second place in the Tigers' semifinal and will also move on to the national championship meet. California and Denver, third and fourth place respectively, were eliminated.

LSU star junior Haleigh Bryant led the Tigers with an all-around score of 39.6875, first among all-around gymnasts. Sophomore Aleah Finnegan also finished third in the all-around with a 39.65.

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The Tigers excelled on the bars and with their floor routines.

Bryant and Finnegan finished second and fourth place on the bars, respectively, while sophomore Tori Tatum and freshman Ashley Cowan both landed in the top 10. On the floor, Finnegan finished in a tie for first with Florida's Leanne Wong. Finnegan finished in third.

LSU struggled a bit on the vault but posted a solid performance on the beam. The Tigers had two top-10 finishers on beam in Bryant (second) and Finnegan (ninth).

Koki Riley covers LSU sports for The Daily Advertiser. Email him at kriley@theadvertiser.com and follow him on Twitter at @KokiRiley.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU gymnastics reaches NCAA national championship final with Florida