By ANDRE CHAMPAGNE, Tiger Rag Staff Reporter
LSU sophomore Kailin Chio put together one of the best freshman seasons in program history last year. Chio, who was named as the SEC Freshman of the Year, finished the 2025 season with a 39.513 all-around average, including career highs of 10.00 on vault, 9.950’s on bars and beam and 9.975 on floor.
“The concern after a freshman year like that is that you kind of see it in sports all the time – they call them sophomore slumps – where somebody comes back the second year and attempts to duplicate what they did or puts too much pressure on themselves and creates a greater level of expectation than is really humanly possible,” head coach Jay Clark said after the Kentucky meet. “And I think she’s doing a good job of managing that so far. She had the mistake last week and then the next three events, she wired.”
In LSU’s SEC road opener at No. 8 Georgia (2-1, 1-1 Southeastern Conference), Chio fell on bars, scoring a 9.300. She bounced back, scoring a 9.950 on beam and 9.850 on floor to finish the meet strong.
While it is incredibly difficult to up the kind of season Chio put together her freshman year, she continues to find ways to outdo herself. Through the Tigers’ first three meets of the season, Chio has claimed two all-around titles and earned her first perfect 10 score of the year on beam in the home opener against Kentucky. Clark said that Chio’s mental growth has allowed her to start the season strong.
“She’s communicating with us about what she feels and what she needs and is just really maturing from a mental perspective even more,” Clark said. “It’s hard to believe that because she seemed to be such a mental rock since the day she got here, but I’m seeing a lot of growth in her and it’s little things, intangibles. It’s not about the skills that she does. It’s about the approach that she takes and how she reacts to circumstances and those kinds of things and how she’s communicating the routine. She’s continuing to do what she’s done.”
Even after earning her first perfect 10 on beam at LSU, Chio made sure to credit her teammates for setting her up in the sixth spot.
“I just did my beam routine,” Chio said after the Kentucky meet. “That beam lineup has been so rock solid from the beginning. You know, Lexi (Zeiss) going in and then Konnor (McClain) going in, they just rocked beam, so I didn’t even feel nervous going up. They set me up so well and I just wanted to do my best routine for them. I was just hoping for the score that we needed to get for this team no matter what if it was a 10 or not and I’m just super proud of myself for my hard work.”
Not only is Chio avoiding a sophomore slump, but she’s on pace for another stellar season.
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