Competing in the second meet of the weekend, the No. 2 LSU gymnastics team notched victories against No. 20 George Washington and No. 22 Iowa with a season high score of 197.975.
“It shows that our preparation was good,” LSU coach D-D Breaux said.“Both our mental and physical preparation. We were able to take some high power and strong legs out of this lineup and put in some people that really needed some experience.”
After a hard fought loss to No.1 Oklahoma on Friday in the Mardi Gras Invitational, the Tigers (10-1, 5-0 Southeastern Conference) bounced back quickly to win today.
“As a team, we gathered together and rallied after what happened on Friday,” senior all-arounder Ashleigh Gnat said. “We were able to come in here, do our job and perform well.”
The Tigers swept all five individual event titles with four gymnasts posting career highs and two others tying their career highs.
“That’s so exciting,” Gnat said.“Every single person that’s come out has hit a high score and those are things that we see everyday in practice, so being able to translate that into the meet is amazing for them.”
After weeks LSU’s showing on vault not being up to Breaux’s standards, the Tigers started strong off strong with a 49.575 and with five 10.0 start values.
Freshman all-arounder Kennedi Edney captured the vault title with a 9.95, matching her career high. Freshman all-arounder Ruby Harrold also posted a career high on vault with a 9.925.
“They came out strong,” Breaux said. “I think it was a giant statement. It’s not just fighting for landings but it’s how you leave the board, how you leave the horse creates the stuck landing and we did everything better tonight.”
Sophomore all-arounder Lexie Priessman won the title on beam with a career-high score of 9.95 with junior all-arounder Myia Hambrick tying her career-high with a 9.925.
Sophomore all-arounder Sarah Finnegan matched her career-high on beam with 9.95 to win the event title. Junior all-arounder Lauren Li posted a career-high of 9.925.
Both sophomore all-arounder McKenna Kelley and senior Sydney Ewing posted career highs on beam with 9.975 and 9.925 respectively. Kelley captured the floor event title.
Freshman all-arounder Ashlyn Kirby made her debut on floor with a 9.625 after stepping out of bounds during her performance.
“The kids had an edge, we wanted them to have an attitude,” Breaux said “We wanted them to come out here, it wasn’t about the other teams on the floor. It was about we’ve got to do better gymnastics if we’re going to beat people. I think they showed tonight that they’ve got better gymnastics than we’ve been seeing.”
The Tigers will travel to face Auburn on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
