Last season, the LSU gymnastics team advanced to the Super Six meet for the first time in school history.Today the Tigers will attempt to become the first LSU team to make back-to-back appearances.LSU will compete in the NCAA national meet in Lincoln, Neb., which consists of the nation’s top-12 teams. The teams are broken into two groups of six, with the top-three teams in each group advancing to compete for the national title in the Super Six meet Friday.Senior Ashleigh Clare-Kearney said the experience of making Super Six last season will help the team on this trip.”[Competing in Super Six last year] is motivation,” Clare-Kearney said. “We want to let everyone know that we got there because we are good enough, not because we got lucky.”Junior Susan Jackson will also defend her individual national championship on the vault. But Jackson said while she is excited to defend her vault title, she has her eyes set on winning the national title on the balance beam as well.”People see me as more of a powerful gymnast,” Jackson said. “Winning beam would have people saying, ‘Oh, she can do it all. She won vault last year; she’s got the power. But she can do beam too, so she’s got grace and power.'”The Tigers are slotted in the first group in the afternoon meet, which will begin at 1 p.m. The other teams competing in the afternoon session are No. 1 Georgia, No. 5 Florida, No. 8 Oklahoma, No. 9 Stanford and No. 12 Penn State.Junior Sabrina Franceschelli said competing in the afternoon group will help the team because it will give them more time to rest before the Super Six meet if they advance.The Tigers’ rotation for the meet has been set in advance. They will begin the meet on the balance beam, followed by the vault and floor exercise and finish on the uneven bars.LSU coach D-D Breaux is glad her team will start on the beam.”We’ve been plagued with having beam last since the SEC Championships last year,” Breaux said. “I’d much prefer trying to get the kids ready to deal with it first than having it hanging over our head.” The beam has been Clare-Kearney’s nemesis for a good part of the season. Clare-Kearney has fallen off the beam in each of the Tigers’ last four meets.But she said she is confident going into the national meet.”I’ve stopped trying to control it,” Clare-Kearney said. “If it’s meant to be, it will be. I don’t think there’s anything else I can do to coach myself or anything my teammates or coaches can do to help me figure out why I haven’t stayed on the beam. So I’m hoping it works itself out because I know I’m capable of being successful on that event.”The Tigers feel they are primed to make a run at the national title despite the struggles on beam.”We’re really excited and very confident,” Franceschelli said. “We used last week as a great preparation for ourselves. We’re just trying to stay as consistent as we can.”—-Contact Rob Landry at [email protected]