LSU’s gymnastics team says it’s just another meet. But the schedule indicates that this meet means more. The Tigers begin their attempt at reaching the NCAA Super Six meet for the second consecutive year and possibly winning the school’s first gymnastics national championship Saturday when they travel to Columbus, Ohio as the top seed in the NCAA Central Regional. In Saturday’s meet, the No. 5 Tigers will face No. 8 Oregon State, No. 17 Ohio State, No. 22 Kent State, No. 24 Kentucky and Michigan State, with the top two finishing teams advancing to the NCAA national meet in Lincoln, Neb., from April 16-18. LSU goes into the meet ranked in the top five nationally despite finishing fourth in the Southeastern Conference championship meet two weeks ago.LSU coach D-D Breaux said competing in the SEC more than prepares the team for competition on the national level.”This match can’t nearly match up to what the SEC championship was like,” Breaux said.  “When you finish fourth in the SEC and are ranked fifth in the nation, it shows you how hard this league is.”With two weeks to prepare for this meet the Tigers changed their practice routine, adding more inter-squad scrimmages. Junior Sabrina Franceschelli said changing the routine helped the team prepare mentally for the regional.”We split into two teams, purple and gold, and basically every day we did an inter-squad with more pressure sets,” Franceschelli said. Junior Susan Jackson said the inter-squad practices have been good for the team’s health, as the decreased number of repetitions has allowed team members with minor injuries to get back to full strength in time for the meet.The Tigers’ competition Saturday will be stiff, though. Oregon State comes into the regional following a second-place finish in the Pac-10 Championship meet. The Beavers have also posted a season-high score of 197.500, .100 higher than the Tigers’ season high of 197.400. The Tigers are relying on strong performances from Jackson and senior Ashleigh Clare-Kearney to qualify for the national meet. Clare-Kearney is ranked No. 3 nationally in the all-around, with a regional qualifying score of 39.515. She is also has a 9.945 RQS on the floor exercise, giving her the top ranking in the country in that event.Jackson is ranked No. 4 with a 39.505 RQS. She is also the defending national champion on the vault.Breaux said Jackson is a key to the Tigers success.”[Jackson] is a rock,” Breaux said.  “She’s a tremendous competitor.”Despite what’s on the line, Clare-Kearney, like the rest of the team, contends LSU will approach this meet the same way it has approached every other meet this season.”If you take a different approach, you begin to make errors and little mistakes that you don’t need to make,” Clare-Kearney said.  “That’s what we try to focus on as a team.  Because when you start to try harder or do things differently, that is when you mess up.”—-Contact Rob Landry at [email protected]