No. 11 Michigan State Hosts Brown for Senior Day

Sunday, March 15

East Lansing, Mich.

2 PM

Michigan State University

Brown

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Photo by: Matthew Mitchell

3/12/2026 4:27:00 PM | Women's Gymnastics

Meet Notes Watch - B1G+Live Scoring

EAST LANSING, Mich. - No. 11 Michigan State gymnastics hosts Brown on Sunday, March 15 at 2 p.m. inside Jenison Field House for its final meet ahead of the Big Ten Championships. The meet will serve as the Spartans' Senior Day and will honor MSU's six seniors - Elle Beaufait, Naya Howard, Sage Kellerman, Stephanie Lebster, Nikki Smith and Olivia Zsarmani.

Sunday's meet will stream on B1G+.

The Spartans are ranked 11th for the sixth-straight week in the Week 10 RoadtoNationals rankings with a national qualifying score (NQS) of 196.993. MSU secured a spot in the top session of the Big Ten Championships for the fifth-straight year with a 6-3 Big Ten record and will compete against UCLA, Minnesota and Michigan at next week's conference championships.

MSU is coming off of a season-high 197.700-196.975 win at then-No. 17 Auburn on March 6. The Spartans captured at least a share of three out of four possible event titles and posted the second-highest vault score in program history (49.625) while also tying its season-high team beam score with a 49.350. MSU's 197.700 is the eighth-best team overall score in program history.

In the team event rankings, MSU ranks eighth on vault (49.246 NQS), 16th on bars (49.186), 14th on beam (49.200) and 10th on floor (49.364). Individually, senior Sage Kellerman is ranked 11th nationally on vault (9.905 NQS), while senior Nikki Smith (ninth, 9.935) and junior MaKayla Tucker (T-12th, 9.925) sit inside the top 15 on floor. Smith (10th, 39.485) and Tucker (12th, 39.415) are also top 15 in the all-around.

Smith put together a spectacular meet against the Tigers last weekend, scoring a 9.950 on vault and trio of 9.925s on bars, beam and floor to tally a season-high 39.725 in the all-around, which tied the third-highest all-around score in program history. She was named this week's Big Ten Gymnast of the Week by the conference, becoming just the third gymnast to win the award in the conference in 2026 (Jordan Chiles, UCLA, Arianna Ostrum, Minnesota) and second to win the award outright (Chiles, eight times). Along with the all-around title, Smith also captured a share of the beam title alongside teammate Olivia Zsarmani and earned the outright bars title.

Zsarmani also picked up a share of the vault title with a career-high-tying 9.975 with teammate Sage Kellerman. Both Kellerman and Zsarmani have now each scored three near-perfect 9.975s on vault in their careers. Junior MaKayla Tucker put up four scores of 9.900 or better to total a career-high 39.625 in the all-around, tying the 10th-best all-around score in the MSU record books, finishing second behind Smith.

SCOUTING BROWN
Brown is 52nd in this week's RoadtoNationals rankings with an NQS of 193.711. The Bears most recently defeated Bridgeport, LIU and Southern Connecticut State in a home quad meet on March 8, scoring a 194.825. Brown's season-high score is a 194.900, set on March 1 against Cortland State.

UP NEXT
MSU travels to Champaign, Illinois, to compete in the third session of the 2026 Big Ten Championships on Saturday, March 21 at 6 p.m. ET inside Illinois' State Farm Arena. The Spartans will face UCLA, Michigan and Minnesota and begin on bars. The meet will be broadcast on Big Ten Network.