The 2014-2015 LSU gymnastics team had all the tools to win a national championship, but its team-score of 48.275 on the balance beam in the NCAA semifinal on April 17 brought darkness to the near-perfect season.
The Tigers (25-6, 7-0 Southeastern Conference) expected to win the national championship, and the pressure lurked throughout the entire season and eventually was the cause of the Tigers’ demise.
“It was too much pressure,” said LSU coach D-D Breaux. “The expectation was too high. Other teams cracked on beam, but nobody cracked as hard as we did.”
Pressure also dwelled on the Tigers in the conference championship meet. LSU posted a second-place score of 197.450, not expected by the team due to its undefeated regular season against conference opponents.
Breaux, SEC coach of the Year, said LSU’s unsuccessful attempt of making the Super Six for the third-consecutive season does not define the Tigers’ season, which was one of the most illustrious in program history.
“Don’t hang your heads,” Breaux said. “The main message was that this does not say how our season was. They got a lot of high-fives from other teams and other coaches.”
Senior All-Americans Jessie Jordan, Rheagan Courville and Lloimincia Hall brought the Tigers to new heights this season. In their final campaign, the trio provided high scoring consistency, which was the main ingredient for the team’s perfect conference regular season record of 7-0.
The threesome each provided a perfect score on senior night on March 6 against Minnesota, which further distinguished their admirable collegiate careers. Courville and Jordan scored a 10.00 on vault to begin the night. Hall, SEC Specialist of the Year for her floor routine, cultivated a 10 in her final home performance.
The perfect scores were a main component of the team’s overall-score of 198.375 against the Gophers — the highest in program history.
Courville, Hall and Jordan combined to provide 164 individual titles for the Tigers since 2012. Courville has been compared to likes of Seimone Augustus and Glen Davis as one of the premier athletes to come out of the Baton Rouge area.
Hall will be remembered by her generational floor routine, and Jordan as the most consistent gymnast in LSU history, Breaux said.
LSU, a team that performs best at home, tallied the school-record score when surrounded by 13,179 fans inside the PMAC. The attendance count marked as the highest in program history — surpassing 12,217 fans, which was set a few weeks prior, against eventual national champion Florida.
To Breaux, this season will be remembered for much more than simply gymnastics.
“Record crowds,” Breaux said. “So much improvement, so much forward movement over the last three years. Everything that we have grown over the last three years has been amazing. It’s a great time to be a Tiger.”
2015 will be remembered as the most popular season in program history by LSU gymnastics. The Tigers hope to see the same hype surrounding the program as the team begins to develop its youthful squad.
“We are very excited,” Breaux said. “The kids who are going to come in and freshman are already talking about ‘We’ve got the flag and we are going to carry it up the hill.’”