Ashleigh Gnat has not been able to sleep.
The senior all-arounder and the LSU gymnastics team head to St. Louis for the NCAA semifinals and it’s her last chance to win a championship.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited,” Gnat said. “I am so fired up and so just ready to be there already. I feel like we’ve been that way since regionals, maybe SECs.”
Last year the Tigers finished with a program-best second place finish.
This year, they have learned from their mistakes and hope that will propel them to a championship.
“Going in, we had a really great year so of course there was definitely a possibility for us to win,” senior all-arounder Sydney Ewing said. “When it came down to it, we had a few mistakes on Super Six night so we ended up in second but that was really an important year for us to get second and to establish that benchmark to know that we can strive for better this year.”
Ewing believes they are in a good place going into nationals.
Despite multiple trips to the NCAA championships, this year feels different.
Each year brings a new team and a new dynamic for LSU coach D-D Breaux.
Breaux said the chemistry with this year’s team is what sets them apart from previous years.
“This team, the heart, they really do march to the right heart beat and the right drum,” Breaux said. “It’s a consistent effort in the practice gym, in the competition arena but when we meet with them as a team, we’ve got their undivided attention. They’ve got a quick sense of humor, they laugh at themselves, they laugh at each other and that’s important.”
Joining the Tigers in the semifinals will be No. 3 Florida, No. 5 Michigan, No. 8 Alabama, No. 9 Georgia and No. 10 Nebraska.
Last season’s Super Six came down to Oklahoma and LSU and while this year is shaping up to be the same way, the team is focusing on themselves.
“Every team that’s going to St. Louis this weekend is gunning for that national title and we know that and I don’t think that we’re going to be focused on other teams,” Gnat said. “At SECs we called it dropping the curtain. We just kind of hung a curtain up around our event and this is what we’re focused on. We’re focused on us and what we’re going to do.”
Breaux said she’s still waiting for the one meet where everyone finally clicks.
Each event has had its shining moment, but never in the same meet.
“We had fabulous everything with little bitty mistakes throughout that the next person up overcame the mistakes so we expect the national championship to be the same thing,” Breaux said. “We don’t expect it to be a perfect meet. We tell our kids you don’t need to be perfect to win it, you just have to be yourself.”
Much of Tigers’ success comes from the program that Breaux has created at LSU.
Gnat said that Breaux and the other coaches created an environment where everybody on the team accepts the message and adapts to it.
“I just feel like this team is destined for greatness and they’ve made their bed and now we’re going to push forward,” Breaux said.
