D-D Breaux couldn’t deny that something was off Friday night.
In front of a mostly pink-clad crowd for the annual Pink Meet to raise breast cancer awareness, the No. 1 LSU gymnastics team appeared to sleepwalk its way through the competition. The usual energetic fanfare was absent, excluding a handful of spectacular individual performances and a slew of tiny mistakes that marred what seemed like an underwhelming showing.
But for all the oddities Friday night, the Tigers (9-3, 4-2 Southeastern Conference) still claimed a 197.500-195.525 victory against No. 25 North Carolina State, totaling a score only five other teams have exceeded this season.
That LSU could have a down meet yet post a score it would’ve killed for last season didn’t slip Breaux’s mind.
“Any team would probably be happy to have that score, especially at this point in the season when you’re looking at the postseason and your preparation is with that in mind,” Breaux said. “I think we skipped the ‘stay in the process’ part tonight.”
Staying with the process for the Tigers this week was made more difficult because the process changed.
Breaux said she modified LSU’s practice schedule leading up to Friday night’s meet. Just a week removed from a program-record 198.050 team score against Missouri, she wanted to keep LSU on its toes.
The Tigers were also missing one of their key performers on two events. Junior all-arounder Jessie Jordan, who has been nursing a sore back, competed only on bars and beam against the Wolfpack (12-7, 10-1 East Atlantic Gymnastics League).
Fellow junior all-arounder Britney Ranzy filled in for Jordan on vault and floor, scoring a 9.850 and a 9.725, respectively. Ranzy is no stranger to the vault — she held a spot in the rotation at the start of the season until an Achilles tendon injury kept her off the apparatus for the last two weeks.
Jordan left her mark in the events she did compete in, earning a 9.850 on bars and a career-high 9.975 on beam.
“It just shows how consistent I’ve been all along,” Jordan said. “I’m anchor on beam, and that’s what I’m supposed to do.”
LSU featured at least one exhibition gymnast on every event because Breaux wanted to test the Tigers’ depth. She was most pleased with freshman all-arounder Sydney Ewing’s 9.925 on vault, which would have earned her a share of the vault title with junior all-arounders Rheagan Courville and Lloimincia Hall.
Courville, the No. 2 gymnast in the country, won the all-around title with a 39.500, but expressed visible frustration after nearly falling off the balance beam.
“It’s disappointing because I know that I can do better, and I’m second-guessing myself,” Courville said. “I try not to do that. So I’m just going to have the mind-set in the gym that I don’t need to carry those mistakes because that’s not who I am and that’s not part of my regimen on workout. It shouldn’t be in competition, either.”
But Courville responded to her 9.750 on beam with a powerful floor routine that earned a 9.925, and Hall followed up with a 9.950-scoring routine that sent the PMAC into one of its few frenzies Friday night.
“We did have a very appreciative crowd, but they knew that we weren’t sticking landings,” Breaux said. “When we would get a great performance, we had a great response.”
LSU turned in several noteworthy performances, like freshman all-arounder Ashleigh Gnat’s career-high 9.950 on beam and sophomore all-arounder Jessica Savona’s 9.925 on floor. But the Tigers made minor technical mistakes throughout the competition that reflected in the final tally.
Breaux is sticking to the rest-centric regimen that kept LSU out of practice until today, confident the Tigers know where they fell short against N.C. State. She called the past week of preparation and performance a letdown, but managed to find a silver lining with the SEC championship two weeks away.
“We didn’t want [a letdown],” Breaux said. “But if there’s any time in your season that this is OK, it’s right now.”