The 2025 college gymnastics season delivered its share of unforgettable moments: the soaring highs of championship victories, record-breaking performances, and stunning upsets, alongside the crushing lows of injuries, unexpected losses, and controversies that gripped the sport. As we reflect on the year, it’s easy to recall the big headlines, but we’ll aim to revisit both the prominent events and the smaller, yet significant, details that shaped the season’s narrative—the moments you celebrated and the ones you might have forgotten.
Oklahoma Resumes Dynasty
The Sooners’ return to the top marked the continuation of their dynasty, as they now own three of the last four and six of the previous ten NCAA titles. The future of the program, Faith Torrez and Addison Fatta, kept Oklahoma in the lead wire-to-wire in the final and will carry the winning momentum into seasons beyond, while Jordan Bowers and Audrey Davis said goodbye to their storied Sooner careers with a trifecta of team championships.
Event Champions Make Sense
An understated victory from championship weekend was not only that we didn’t get a single tie for an event title this season, but each of the event champions made sense. LSU’s freshman of the year frontrunner Kailin Chio stuck a handful of Yurchenko one and a halves throughout her rookie campaign and did so again in the Tigers’ semifinal to take home her first NCAA title. Bruin and Olympic champion Jordan Chiles brings the excitement with her jam-packed bars routine that she executes to perfection, and in the evening session swung swiftly to her second win on the event in her career. See below, but Missouri notched its first NCAA gymnastics champion in program history with Helen Hu’s incredible comeback on beam, and fan-favorite Brooklyn Moors kept UCLA’s outstanding floor tradition alive with a near-flawless routine to end her career with the title.
Hu’s Scores First Perfect 10
After retiring at the end of the 2023 season and spending 2024 traveling the world, Missouri re-recruited Hu back to its superteam solely to anchor on her pet event, beam. Upon her first retirement, fans immediately added her to the “best to never get a 10.0 list”, so three meets into the season when Hu finally hit perfection on the road at Oklahoma, the gymternet was collectively relieved. In addition to a national championship, Hu’s signature style earned her three perfect 10s by season’s end, giving her all the accolades to be remembered as one of the best collegiate beamers ever.
NCAA Gymnastics Debuts on FOX
Tangible evidence that the sport is growing is the increasing presence of major networks airing the sport live. The 2025 season saw FOX make a significant investment, broadcasting its first NCAA gymnastics meet—a Big Ten dual between Michigan State and host UCLA. Additionally, both teams delivered a flawless product, with the battle ultimately coming down to the final routines before the Bruins managed to eek out a victory. FOX joins ESPN, the Big Ten Network, and ABC as major, nationwide networks now broadcasting NCAA gymnastics, continuing to prove that the sport has officially “made it”.
Missouri and Michigan State Earn Program Best Finishes
Two of this season’s national qualifiers finished their historic seasons with the ideal ending—a program-best finish. After establishing itself as a vault powerhouse early in the season, Michigan State capitalized on that weapon to not only end the regular season on the right side of the nationals bubble, but avoid a regionals upset and take itself to a sixth-place overall finish in Fort Worth. Missouri joined Michigan State on the “nationals contender” list for much of the year, lingering inside the top ten before putting it all together in the postseason—finishing in third after making it through one of the most exciting NCAA semifinals the sport has seen.
Second-Straight Season Defending Champion is Upset in Semifinal
Speaking of NCAA semifinals, for the second year in a row, the defending national champion didn’t make it to the championship to defend its title, with No. 1 seed LSU bowing out in a wildly competitive evening session behind Utah and UCLA—and for the third year in a row the defending champion didn’t make the final, with Michigan missing out as well in 2022. That made for an abrupt end to the careers of many Tiger greats like Haleigh Bryant and Aleah Finnegan, who will undoubtedly be remembered for leading the program to its first NCAA title in 2024.
Carey Finishes Titleless
While there is plenty to celebrate with this year’s event champions, one of the most significant downsides was the lack of superstar Jade Carey amongst the title winners, meaning she finishes her incredible collegiate career without a win at NCAAs. The Olympic champion was one of the top all-arounders and event contenders throughout her entire career, but never separated herself in Fort Worth to secure an individual title. Thankfully, the Beaver scored multiple second and third-place finishes in her NCAA career and won the prestigious AAI Award to cap her final collegiate campaign.
Price Nabs WCGNIC Title Sweep
The first five-star to ever commit to an HBCU—Morgan Price—has been a longtime headline-maker. This year, she added another giant feat to her resume, taking home the all-around and every single event title at the inaugural WCGNIC Championships. The Fisk junior qualified to the meet, formerly the USAG National Championships, as an individual, but didn’t let the lack of teammates prevent her from having a historic meet. She scored a 9.8 or better on every single routine but one vault (that still went 9.775) en route to every title, setting herself up for a historic senior season to cap her career.
La Crosse Back on Top
With UW-Oshkosh and UW-Whitewater the top two Division III squads headed into the NCGA championships, UW-La Crosse pulled off the upset to top the standings at the end of the night en route to championship No. 18 for the program. Even with a fall, the Eagles had plenty of breathing room as they also captured a new best score in the process with Grace Kehr leading the way thanks to a pair of 9.85-plus scores in the final.
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Article by Brandis Heffner
