FORT WORTH, TEXAS － LSU gymnastics coach D-D Breaux emphasized the importance of getting out to a fast start in the first rotation of the NCAA Semifinal II meet Friday night.
The No. 4 LSU gymnastics team answered the challenge with a 49.375 on vault, but the Tigers still missed the cut for the Super Six Championships.
Junior all-arounder Jessica Savona set the benchmark for her teammates with a respectable 9.825 in the leadoff spot, and the Tigers followed with five scores of 9.850 or better.
“It was beautiful,” Breaux said. “Vault [was] beautiful. All [we] had to do was 49.200 on each event, and we were way ahead of that.”
Sophomore all-arounder Sydney Ewing and senior all-arounder Jessie Jordan tallied scores of 9.850 as the second and third competitor in the rotation, respectively.
Freshman all-arounder Myia Hambrick defended her Southeastern Conference vault title with the highest vault score of the meet. Hambrick tied her career-high on the event with a 9.950 as the strong showing of LSU fans showered her with cheers. Hambrick said her high score was a result of Ewing and Jordan taking the pressure off of her with high scores at the beginning of the lineup.
“All I really had to do was stick the thing, and I did,” Hambrick said. “When I go, I don’t really think about a whole lot. I just let it go.”
Tiger fans returned to their feet after sophomore all-arounder Ashleigh Gnat unleashed a double-twisting yurchenko, and the judges rewarded her efforts with a 9.850. Senior all-arounder Rheagan Courville anchored the rotation with a 9.875 and put LSU in second place just a quarter tenth-behind Alabama after the first rotation.
LSU’s season comes to an end on beam
After a bye rotation and a strong score on bars, LSU went to beam in the fourth rotation, on which it threw away its chances of advancing to the Super Six Championships for the third-straight season. Beam accounts for the Tigers’ lowest regional qualifying score this season at 49.355, but the Tigers took it to another level with a season-low 48.275.
The last five gymnasts needed to execute their routines perfectly after Hall scored a 9.300 in the leadoff spot, but they answered with two more shaky routines.
“Kids don’t want to mess up, but sometimes kids do things that causes it to happen, “ Breaux said. “That’s the part that bothers me. We have coached against that happening. We have coached positive beam. I don’t think we have counted a fall in three years.”
All of the air was sucked out of the Convention Center when freshman all-arounder Erin Macadaeg suffered a vicious fall off the beam, but she got up and finished her routine earning a 9.250. Ewing stopped the bleeding momentarily with a 9.850, but Gnat couldn’t overcome the pressure, and she scored a 9.375 after becoming the second Tiger to fall off the beam.
Courville and Jordan finished the rotation with a 9.850 and 9.900, respectively, but it wasn’t enough. The Tigers faced an insurmountable deficit going into the last rotation, but they still put up a valiant effort on floor as their fans cheered them on. LSU posted four scores of 9.900 or better, ending up in fifth place with a 196.550 team score.
“I was definitely surprised, because we had the momentum,” Jordan said. “There was a certain flow of the competition, and we were right there with it. There was a mental slip somewhere between 30-second touch and hitting the beam, and it was detrimental to our performance. It’s a huge disappointment.”
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