Florida’s Riley McCusker Wins NCAA Gymnastics National Title
FORT WORTH, Texas — While team competition rages on, the individual winners have been crowned at the NCAA Gymnastics Championship.
Florida fifth-year senior Riley McCusker won the national title Thursday on bars with a score of 9.9875. She received perfect scores from four of six judges, finishing one away from a true 10, as the lowest score is dropped to reach the average.
“I had a bunch of confidence just seeing my teammates go up and do their thing,” McCusker said. “Really being able to build off their success, and like in our promise, ‘a win for one is a win for all.'”
Florida earned its first individual champion since Leanne Wong tied with Audrey Davis of Oklahoma for the bars title in 2024.
McCusker sat out of just one Florida bars lineup all season, scoring as high as a 9.975 twice in the regular season and posting above a 9.9 ten times. She was named WCGA Regular Season First Team Bars All-American and earned a spot on the All-SEC Team for the event.
In her storied career, McCusker has been considered one of the best bar gymnasts in the world. She won gold on bars at the 2017 U.S. Championship and 2019 Pan American Games and took silver at the 2019 and 2021 U.S. Championships and 2021 Winter Cup.
On Thursday she claimed her first NCAA title in the second-to-last competition of her career, with a chance to add another when the Gators compete in Saturday’s team finals. Florida advanced to the NCAA Championship Final with a 197.7875 in the afternoon session.
Florida’s Skye Blakely and individual competitor Aurélie Tran of Iowa tied for second with scores of 9.975.
UCLA senior and two-time Olympian Jordan Chiles could not defend her individual bars title, falling on her first routine of the competition. The mistake also knocked her out of all-around contention despite entering as one of the favorites and the country’s No. 2 gymnast across all four events.
In two-session competitions, scores tend to run higher in the evening. Session II was no exception as four of the five individual titles were decided.
McCusker was the only afternoon winner, which meant LSU sophomore Kailin Chio could not add another individual accolade to her young career. She finished second in the all-around, on bars and on floor.
In the all-around, Oklahoma senior Faith Torrez took the title in surprising fashion. Competing all four events for the first time all season, she posted a 9.95 in her season debut on floor and a 9.9375 in her first vault routine since Feb. 20 to earn her second NCAA individual title, having won beam in 2024.
Sooners coach KJ Kindler said that Torrez asked to start training floor after the SEC Championship on March 21. The senior was limited to bars and beam mostly this season due to a preseason injury.
“If you would’ve asked me two-and-a-half weeks ago that I would be in this position right now, doing floor, living out my dream right now, I’d probably laugh at you,” Torrez said. “I had no intentions of doing this at the beginning of the season, middle of the season, but to be here and have everything kind of just play out as it did is really amazing. I’m really grateful for that.”
Florida senior eMjae Frazier finished third in the all-around. Gators Kayla DiCello and Selena Harris-Miranda placed fourth and ninth, respectively.
Three top all-around contenders did not compete all four events and were therefore ineligible for the title. Florida’s Blakely and Arkansas’s Joscelyn Roberson each sat out of their team’s vault lineup, while Oklahoma’s Addison Fatta competed only beam as the country’s No. 4 all-arounder due to a hand injury suffered in training on Saturday, as confirmed by Kindler.
WCGA Regular Season First Team Vault All-American Keira Wells of Oklahoma won the event with a 9.975 for her first individual NCAA Championship title. She led off the evening session with the near-perfect score after being moved to the first spot in Oklahoma’s lineup last minute.
“I had my mind set that anything could happen,” Wells said. “I was ready for anything, and I was just out there to do it for my team, not really for myself.”
On beam, Brooklyn Rowray claimed Minnesota’s second national championship in program history, the first since Marie Roethlisberger on bars in 1990. Her 9.9625 also helped lead the Golden Gophers to the Final Four on the Floor for the first time ever.
While No. 4 UCLA’s season ended in the semifinals, Chiles did not leave Fort Worth empty-handed. A 9.975 won her the individual floor title, an event she has been perfect on six times this season.
She also won the 2026 AAI Award, a coaches’ award given to the senior gymnast that best exemplifies outstanding gymnastics and leadership. Chiles is UCLA’s first to win this coveted award since Vanessa Zamarripa 2013.
Category: Feature Sports News, Gator Sports, Gators Gymnastics
