The Fab Floor Lineup Has Taken Mizzou Gymnastics To New Heights
3/2/2024
If there’s one event that shows the rapid ascension of Missouri gymnastics into a new era, it’s the Tigers’ Fab Floor lineup.
It’s been over a full calendar year since Mizzou has scored lower than 49.3 on floor, as the event group has continued its ascension into one of the most consistent in the country. The 14 consecutive meets at the mark constitute the longest streak in the SEC by five meets. Every week since the start of the 2024 season, the Tigers’ floor lineup has scored at least a 49.350, and five of Mizzou’s starters on the event have recorded three or more 9.9s this year.
In the Road To Nationals rankings, Missouri has maintained a position in the top 10 for all eight weeks this season. Led by a core of talented freshmen — Rayna Light, Hannah Horton and Kennedy Griffin — and established stars — Sienna Schreiber, Amari Celestine and Jocelyn Moore — the Tigers have excelled as one of the best top-to-bottom floor units in the country.
Behind the experienced leadership of head coach Shannon Welker and the fresh perspective of first-year assistant coach Jackie Terpak, Missouri’s upward trajectory on the floor is just getting started.
“They've definitely gotten better over this season, and they've been consistent,” Welker said. “We have had a lot of success over the last two seasons on that event, so we've added some really talented young women over there. They are obviously a talented group, so it's been fun to coach him this year.”
Welker has coached the floor lineup throughout his tenure with the Tigers, but with the new NCAA rule change that allows for coaching staffs to add a fourth coach, Missouri added Terpak to assist in floor coaching while expanding the creativity in choreography.
“That was never a strength of mine coaching floor, so we had to rely on some outside choreography where the girls would go and work with somebody on their own,” Welker said. “It's been so great to have Jackie and myself working together over there. She actually does a decent amount of the tumbling and so that frees me up to go work on other events. I feel like we've got a good thing going over there and I think it's showing with how they're performing as well.”
Terpak has a long history of choreographing routines dating back to her time in club gymnastics. She put together her own floor dance, and once her teammates saw the results of her performance, she started helping them put together their dances.
“I choreographed my club gym all throughout high school, and then I had friends from other gyms asking me to do theirs and so I did a few people in different gyms across the region,” Terpak said. “Even when I went to college, I would choreograph for my whole club gym and then other gyms if they asked me to.”
During her college career at Temple, she continued to choreograph routines at her club gym, and after one of the team’s assistant coaches left, she put together routines for her teammates during her junior and senior years. After a year as a volunteer assistant coach at Arkansas last season, where she choreographed routines for the Razorbacks, Terpak found her first assistant coach position this season at Mizzou, where she’s brought her expertise in floor choreography to Columbia.
Terpak has enjoyed working with Welker as she continues to help the Tigers build into a potent floor unit. With the work Welker put in by bringing in top-level talent and programming well-executed tumbling passes, Terpak has been able to add a creative flair and take the lead on coaching floor when Welker is helping on vault during practice.
“The collaboration process has been great,” Terpak said. “Shannon's been doing this for a long time now, and he's had successful floor teams, so he's great at programming floor. I'm learning a lot from him and how he has run things, and I appreciate that he values my opinion if I have an idea for an assignment. He's been super open to co-coaching together, which is great and I've enjoyed it.”
“We've not always been at this spot on floor,” Welker said. “It's definitely not always been here, so it's nice to see that we're at this point. We happen to be fortunate on floor that many of them are just working on finding that extra half-tenth.”Shannon Welker
The proof of success from Welker and Terpak’s first season partnering together came quickly. With six star gymnasts, the Tigers opened up the season ranked No. 3 in the country on floor and have maintained their spot in the top 10 every week since. Three Tigers have an NQS above 9.9 as the team is on pace for its best year on floor in program history.
Schreiber’s inspiration for this season’s choreography sees her playing the role of a superhero. Throughout the routine, the graduate student is attempting to break free from her own force field and kickstart the Tigers in the leadoff spot, a position that she’s held for most of her career.
“In the beginning, I put my forcefield on when I walk on the floor, but then I get trapped before my first pass,” Schreiber said. “After my second pass is when I escape, and I'm happy again because I'm out of the force field.”
It’s the first time in her five-year career that she’s had an intentional theme behind her routine. With the superhero performance and switching around the order for some of her passes, Schreiber has put together a career-best 9.880 NQS this season and posted a career-best 9.925 at Texas Woman’s last month.
“I've been doing some of the passes for a while, so I think I finally made up my mind and said, ‘Alright, we're gonna really work hard this summer to fix these things,’” Schreiber said. “I learned a new skill and added a double full, but then I actually went back to the older routine I did. It helped with my endurance to put my rudi back layout second, because I think having that as my last pass is more of an amplified statement piece, I guess.”
In her first year working with the veteran Schreiber, Terpak has noticed an attitude of always wanting to improve and find the extra half-tenths that can set her routine apart.
“Even though it's her fifth year and even though she's had so much success in the past, she still is always wanting to get better and willing to get better,” Terpak said. “She'll come in to me to watch videos after the meet, and before I even get to talk to her about it, she’s already analyzed her own gymnastics and knows what she wants to improve.”
Light follows Schreiber in the second spot as the first freshman up in the lineup. Her routine is backed by a floor music mix consisting of songs composed by English singer-producer Labrinth for the ‘Euphoria’ soundtrack, which she picked out before arriving on campus for her debut season.
“Rayna came to me before the season and said she wanted to do music off the Euphoria soundtrack and I said, ‘Great,’” Terpak said. “We went through both soundtracks and found a few songs we liked and then I mixed them together and we created that piece.”
The Brandon, Florida, native channels the inspiration from her routine from one of the show’s characters, Maddy Perez. Much in the same way as Schreiber, Light’s performance is her trying to fight through external pressure, but instead of a force field, it’s through someone trying to control her.
“Jackie and I came up with the storyline that I’m in this rocky relationship, but I'm strong and independent,” Light said. “The reason why I shake my finger and say, ‘No’ at the end of my routine is because I'm too good for it and I'm unstoppable.”
Coming from a club gym that was heavy on the artistic side of gymnastics, Light enjoys the aspect of not just performing choreography that’s engaging, but telling a story through her routine.
“My head coach at home is very big on artistry and performance, and her mindset is if you're not telling a story, then you're not doing a good enough job,” Light said. “I think that having that helps me a lot, so getting here and actually finding a story that I feel fits me made it a lot easier to portray that powerful vibe.”
Out of the three freshmen, Horton is the only first-year Tiger to compete in every floor lineup this season as she has settled into Missouri’s third spot. With a trio of Rihanna songs serving as the backbone of her floor music, Horton comes alive as a dancer when she’s performing.
“At meets, I'd be dancing, but I feel that especially before coming to college, I never really expressed myself,” Horton said. “I was just doing the moves and not really showing emotion. Coming here, Shannon told me that if I wanted to get a 9.9-plus routine, I actually had to show emotion.”
Terpak has seen Horton come alive as a dancer during her first year at MU. The gymnast from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, possesses an introverted personality, but through choreography that takes inspiration from Rihanna’s Super Bowl halftime performance, Horton looks like she’s having the time of her life in the spotlight.
“She came in really quiet and slowly she's brought her personality out,” Terpak said. “We were working on her floor routine and she'd do something and I’d say, ‘You can dance.’ She’d shy away like she didn’t know what I was talking about, but it's coming out of her week by week and she’s just stepped up her energy.”
Horton appreciates the modern approach to dancing within her floor routine, with a focus on popular dances that her teammates can easily interact with.
“You want to get the crowd engaged, not only yourself and your teammates,” Horton said. “They know some of the dances because they've seen it on the Internet, and it's cool for them to watch your routine and say, ‘I know how to do that dance.’”
After performing in the anchor spot in the past, Celestine has shifted into the fourth spot to sandwich the freshman, Griffin. The Wildomar, California, performer is the only gymnast on the team whose routine is not choreographed by Terpak, as her brother, Artyon, continued the role that he’s had as the personal choreographer for her older sister.
“Artyon is very smart and he’s wise beyond his years,” Celestine said. “I feel comfortable leaving it with him because I know that he's not going to send me out there looking like a mess. He's gonna allow me to go out there and show the best representation of me.”
The routine concocted this summer in southern California is an homage to the movie ‘Drumline’, a film starring Nick Cannon that is centered around an HBCU marching band. ‘Drumline’ is one of her parents’ favorite movies, and Celestine wanted to play the role of a drum line majorette in her floor routine.
“I love the dance moves and they're so flowy,” Celestine said. “Everything about it is so dynamic, but it's also very beautiful to me. It represents the energy that I have for this year.”
Even though Amari and Artyon craft the routine over the summer, Terpak works with Celestine to nail down the finer details of the routine, ensuring that all parts of the routine are ready for the meet so that she can continue to make a name for herself on the event.
As the season reaches the home stretch, Celestine's routine has only gotten better with three consecutive 9.925+ routines to round out the month of February as she approaches her best floor NQS.
Griffin earned her first collegiate start on floor after scoring a 9.900 in an exhibition routine at the Mizzou Invitational. After opening the season in Missouri’s second spot, the freshman from Strongsville, Ohio, has held the fifth spot for the last month.
The move has paid great dividends for the Tigers, as Griffin has posted 9.9s in five of her last six performances. Additionally, her first night in the position against No. 3 LSU yielded a 9.975, which tied a program-record score, earned an event title and helped Mizzou score its highest-ranked win ever.
Griffin is a big Beyoncé fan, and with the help of Terpak, the two want to create routines that span Queen Bey’s discography. Since 2024 is Griffin’s debut season, it’s fitting that her floor music and performance are inspired by Beyoncé’s breakout as a member of Destiny’s Child.
“I grew up listening to Destiny's Child, so when Jackie and I were putting together the routine, Jackie had music cut, but she didn't have any of the dance yet,” Griffin said. “We collaborated to come up with some dance moves and figure out what worked best for me.”
In her transition to college gymnastics, she appreciates how her floor routine is centered not just around skills, but the presentation and crowd engagement.
“In club, it was just getting through the routine and making everything,” Griffin said. “But now since we can do the skills and we have the endurance to do it, it's really focusing on the details and especially the presentation. In club genetics, it wasn't really about engaging the crowd, it was kind of just trying to be the best that you can. But in college, I feel like that plays a big factor in the score and the routine, so that makes it a lot more fun.”
Rounding out the rotation is Moore, who has been on a run this season that few others have matched. In her first year as the floor anchor, she has posted 9.9s in her last 11 floor routines dating back to the 2023 SEC Championship. She is one of just two SEC gymnasts to hit 9.9s in every floor performance this season, and with her 9.945 NQS on the event, she ranks fifth in the nation. The score has already broken the program floor NQS record as she is on track to become Missouri's first WCGA Regular-Season All-American on floor in program history.
Moore cut the music inspired by Afrobeats music herself before coming in, and once Terpak came up with the choreography to help Moore reach the next level, the routine all fell into place for what’s been a breakout season on the event.
“Jackie and her master mind for choreography came up with a really great dance for the routine,” Moore said. “I didn't even really have a vision for it in my mind. I just knew I really liked the music, so I was really proud of what she was able to put together with what I came up with.”
With the move into the anchor position, Moore has reached a different level, tying Missouri's floor program record twice with a 9.975. While she had been a solid performer with a pair of NQS scores above 9.9 in her first two years as a Tiger, a commitment to the details has helped the Hillsborough, New Jersey, standout become one of the top floor specialists in the nation.
“I've noticed that when I focus on certain details, that actually helps me to be more clean and perform well,” Moore said. “At this point, I've been doing this floor routine and these passes for about four years now. I know I'm capable of doing the passes, so it's just about the matter of going in and focusing on the little things that we can fix. This year, I've been close to a perfect 10 on a few routines, so every day I'm just going back into the gym, not being complacent and knowing that there is still more work to do. Even though I've reached a high level of consistency, there's still more work to be done.”
After years of consistent production from Celestine in the anchor spot, Welker made the move to put Moore in to build scores, and the switch has paid off. In addition to Moore’s program-best NQS, Celestine has remained a consistent force with a 9.905 NQS that is just on the edge of the top 25.
“I think both Amari and Jocelyn are doing a great job,” Welker said. The cool thing about them is that I talked to them about it and they're like, ‘Alright, Shannon, whatever you think is best.’ They both trust us to produce the best floor lineup and build some exciting stuff. I think when you have that trust from them, things go well.”
Welker has seen the program grow in his decade as coach, from struggling to make an NCAA Regional to making the semifinal of 2022 NCAA Nationals. While every event has improved leaps and bounds from the time Welker took over the head coaching job in 2013, the progress his team has made on floor shows the steady improvement Mizzou gymnastics has made since joining the SEC.
“We've not always been at this spot on floor,” Welker said. “It's definitely not always been here, so it's nice to see that we're at this point. We happen to be fortunate on floor that many of them are just working on finding that extra half-tenth.”
As Welker reflects on the team’s growth on floor, he knows that even as the scores have taken a drastic jump over the last 10 years, he knows that the team is capable of even more as the season hits the home stretch.
“We have to remind ourselves to step back and just appreciate where we're at and how well we've done,” Welker said. “I think it's easy for Type A gymnasts and coaches to just always be looking at the next step. We’re in a really good spot, and it's been fun to see the progress over there. I’m looking forward to this group going into postseason and really excelling on not only on floor, but every event.”
