In a season of firsts for the LSU gymnastics team, the highlight was a second.The Tigers reached the Super Six, the gymnastics version of the Final Four or BCS, for the second consecutive year. LSU placed sixth in the meet. “Being able to [make it to Super Six] two years in a row shows the strides that we’ve made as a team,” said senior Ashleigh Clare-Kearney. “Just to be a part of that team once again, to make it to Super Six, was a huge accomplishment for LSU, for [coach] D-D [Breaux], and for all of us to be a part of.”Clare-Kearney had many huge accomplishments of her own this season. The Manchester, Conn., native capped her historic career as the most decorated gymnast in LSU history. Her 114 individual titles rank first among LSU gymnasts and are five more than the former record holder, April Burkholder. Clare-Kearney also walked away from the NCAA Championship weekend with two individual national titles on the vault and floor exercise. She is the first LSU gymnast to win two national titles.”My hat goes off to Ashleigh,” Breaux said.  “She had her injury, her setbacks and disappointments throughout her career, but she never lost sight of that goal and never lost sight of the dream that she could win national championships.”The 2009 season brought other firsts for LSU as well.The Tigers traveled to Tuscaloosa, Ala., and defeated Alabama in Coleman Coliseum for the first time since 1976.”[Winning at Alabama] was amazing,” said junior Sabrina Franceschelli. “To win in that type of environment and that stadium was incredible.”The win was also the first at Alabama in Breaux’s 32 year tenure at the helm of the LSU gymnastics program.”We beat Alabama at Alabama,” Breaux said. “Nobody does that.”Six Tigers — Clare-Kearney, Franceschelli, junior Susan Jackson, junior Summer Hubbard, junior Kayla Rogers and sophomore Staci Schwitkis — garnered All-American honors this season, the most in LSU history.But the season did not start the way LSU wanted.Hurricane Gustav set the team’s preparation for the season back and led to a slow start for the Tigers.”[Gustav] took us out of the gym for two or three weeks,” Jackson said. “There were a lot of things that weren’t going our way early on.”But the Tigers persevered through the adversity and opened up the season with a victory in the Cancun Classic. The Tigers then placed first in a tri-meet at Iowa.First up on the home schedule for LSU was four-time defending national champion Georgia. The Bulldogs handed the Tigers their first loss of the season.LSU then hit the road for two consecutive Southeastern Conference meets against Kentucky and Auburn. LSU defeated the former but fell to the latter.Following the loss to Auburn, LSU began a six-meet winning streak that included three wins against top 10 opponents. The Tigers defeated No. 5 Alabama, No. 8 Florida, No. 9 Arkansas, Centenary, North Carolina and Illinois-Chicago in a tri-meet and North Carolina State in the second annual Etta James Memorial Meet.The Etta James meet drew a crowd of 6,170, the second largest in LSU history. The meet also raised $50,171.92 for former LSU and current Dallas Cowboys linebacker Bradie James’ Foundation 56, a breast cancer awareness foundation.”Everybody give yourself a round of applause,” James said to the PMAC crowd following the Etta James meet. “I never thought we could raise this much money in just the second year.”To begin postseason competition, the Tigers finished fourth in the SEC Championship meet in Nashville, Tenn.LSU was placed in the Central Regional, hosted by Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio. The Tigers won the regional and advanced to the NCAA national meet.In the national meet, LSU placed third in its group, punching a ticket to the Super Six.In 2010, expectations for the Tigers will be at an all-time high, with five of the six All-Americans returning to the squad, including all four members of next season’s senior class.”We’ll have a lot more determination to know that we can all do it together,” Franceschelli said.  “It really helps to have four of us in the same class to have the same goal and go out and accomplish it.  We can go into it next year and we can take our own personalities and mesh them together to all be leaders in some sort of way.”  ——Contact Rob Landry at [email protected]