Shannon Welker’s Missouri Tigers have experienced a meteoric rise over the last few seasons.
After finishing No. 41 in his first season as head coach in 2014, the Tigers have climbed through the rankings every season since, finishing as high as No. 5 in 2022. This season, they completed the “program gym slam,” as Mara Titarsolej and Jocelyn Moore reached perfection on bars and floor to earn the program’s first perfect scores on those events. Moore was responsible for the program’s lone 10.0 on vault in 2023 while Sienna Schreiber tied the previous record set by Lauren Schwartzman in 2004 with a perfect 10 of her own on beam this season.
Bars hasn’t always been a successful event for Missouri. The Tigers have been ranked in the top 30 every year since Welker’s arrival but currently have their highest event ranking at No. 11. Welker noted that bringing in Titarsolej has brought steadiness. “You got to have those people on events that just have some leadership and just command that event. [She has] a great presence.”
Though Titarsolej previously scored a 10 on bars at LIU, her experience competing in the SEC has been vastly different from what she was used to. “Getting up on the podium, [seeing] SEC everywhere, it’s so different. It was honestly…
