Welker Earns SEC Coach of the Year, Hu Specialist of the Year
3/26/2025 12:00:00 PM | Gymnastics
Four Tigers earned All-SEC honors in addition to Welker and Hu’s awards.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – University of Missouri gymnastics head coach Shannon Welker has been named Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year, while redshirt senior Helen Hu (Chicago, Ill.) has earned SEC Event Specialist of the Year honors, the league office announced Wednesday.
In addition, Hu and teammates Amari Celestine (Wildomar, Calif.), Jocelyn Moore (Hillsborough, N.J.) and Mara Titarsolej (Zutphen, Netherlands) were named to the All-SEC Team.
Welker earned the recognition from the league coaches for the second time in his career, having also won SEC Coach of the Year in 2022. In his 12th year at the helm of the program, Welker is currently leading the Tigers to one of their most successful seasons in program history. The team tied its best-ever finish at the SEC Championship meet, currently holds its highest national qualifying score (NQS) in history of 197.510, reached its best-ever NQS ranking of No. 7 and has had all four events ranked in the top 10 nationally.
In addition, Welker led the team to its first score of 198 and its highest score on both floor (49.725) and beam (49.575). The fab floor's ranking of No. 3 nationally in weeks nine and 10 was the highest event ranking ever by Missouri. Three Tigers scored four perfect 10s this year, Mizzou's most in a single year. Mizzou earned a two seed, its best in program history, on Monday for the NCAA Seattle Regional.
Hu, a balance beam specialist, earned her third All-SEC Team honors in addition to her second Specialist of the Year award, which she won in 2020. She set numerous national and program records throughout the year. Hu began the year with the first 10 of the 2025 season during her beam routine during the third meet at No. 1 Oklahoma and followed it up with consecutive scores of 9.975.
Hu also captured a second perfect score in the Tigers' final regular season meet at No. 16 Arkansas, becoming the only gymnast in the nation with a pair of 10s on beam. In total, she garnered five SEC Specialist of the Week honors, becoming the first gymnast in conference history to do so, and shared the SEC Beam Championship title. Hu finished the year ranked second nationally on beam. Mizzou has now won the SEC Specialist of the Year award in three of the last four seasons.
In her final season of competition, Celestine began competing in the all-around and set numerous personal bests to earn a spot on the All-SEC Team after her NQS on the floor exercise slotted at No. 9 nationally and fifth in the conference after week 11. She capped off the regular season with six-straight scores on floor of at least 9.900, three of which were 9.950 or better. In total, the senior has 19 scores of 9.900 or better across all four events. Her career-best in the all-around of 39.625 set at Zou to the Lou ties the seventh-best score in program history.
Moore solidified her All-SEC Team inclusion after ending the regular season campaign with an NQS of 9.930, putting her 11th nationally and seventh in the league. A senior, Moore set season bests of 9.950 on bars and floor and 9.975 on vault, with her bars score in the team's senior day meet against Auburn marking a career best. Her third 9.950 on floor of 2025 in the Auburn meet clinched the program's first score of 198. Moore currently holds 11 scores of 9.900 or higher this season, seven of which came on floor.
Celestine and Moore are now the first four-year gymnasts in program history to earn four All-SEC accolades.
Titarsolej has been the definition of consistency on bars during her time at Mizzou and captured her second All-SEC recognition with an NQS on uneven bars of 9.945, ranking fourth in the country and third in the SEC. The graduate student has won back-to-back SEC championship titles on bars, including her third career 10 at the 2025 meet. Her score on Saturday was the fifth-straight meet where Titarsolej scored 9.950 or better on her routine. She owns the only 10s on bars in program history and has anchored the Tigers' lineup in every meet of her Black & Gold career.
The All-SEC Team is comprised of the student-athletes with the top eight scores (including ties) on each event and in the All-Around competition through the regular season based on NQS.
Missouri gymnastics will travel to Seattle as the second seed for its NCAA Regional meet, competing against No. 10 Georgia (third seed), No. 21 Arizona and No. 26 Arizona State on Friday, April 4 at 3 p.m. CT at Alaska Airlines Arena. The second quad consists of No. 2 Oklahoma (one seed), No. 15 Auburn (four seed), No. 20 Nebraska and the winner of the dual meet between No. 29 Illinois and No. 35 UC Davis. All NCAA Regional meets will be live streamed on ESPN+.
The top two teams from each quad meet advance to the NCAA Seattle Regional Final on Sunday, April 6 at 7 p.m. From there, the top two finishers receive an automatic berth to the national championship in Fort Worth, Texas.
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