The gymnastics regular season is winding down to a close.But the No. 11 LSU gymnastics team still has one meet to fine tune its skills before the Southeastern Conference Championship meet next weekend.The Tigers head to Shreveport on Friday to take on the Centenary Ladies.Both teams enter the meet coming off season-high scores last week.The Tigers posted a 197.150 on senior night against Iowa, and the Ladies scored a 190.350 at Southeast Missouri State.LSU coach D-D Breaux said the Tigers will not use this meet to rest for the SEC championship, but instead have the regulars polish their routines.”What we need to do is continue to develop our consistency, and to do that we need to go with our lineup,” Breaux said. “I would like to juggle the lineup, I would like to interject some different people, but at this point I think the team knows we really can’t afford to let up.”Breaux said that the team mentality is to keep up the intensity.”We have a saying in the gym, ‘If you let up, you lose,'” Breaux said. “We’re going to have to continue to press and push.”The Tigers also know that a good score in a road meet would do wonders for their Regional Qualifying Score — the score that determines rankings and regional pairings.”We saw this week that we posted a season high and we moved down one spot,” said senior Summer Hubbard. “So we need a good, solid away score; it would be best to go with a 197 again, and then we’ll definitely move up a couple spots.”The Tigers plan to take the same approach to this meet as they have in past weeks, which has led to big scores.”We’re definitely going to still work on little things like tumbling out, working on our landings and being more confident on our routines, especially on beam,” said senior Sabrina Franceschelli. “We’re all just going to try to stay together and stay in the process and work hard.”The team ranking wasn’t the only ranking that fell this week.Senior Susan Jackson dropped from first in the all-around rankings to second. Jackson held first for eight consecutive weeks.Jackson still ranks in the top 20 of every individual apparatus. She is No. 1 on the vault, No. 5 on the uneven bars, No. 12 on the balance beam and No. 17 on the floor exercise.Hubbard checked in at No. 16 on the uneven bars.LSU did receive one honor this week when freshman Ericka Garcia was named SEC Co-Freshman of the Week by the league office.Garcia posted a career-high 9.825 on the balance beam, a 9.825 on the uneven bars and a 9.80 on the vault.Garcia shared the honor with Georgia freshman Christa Tanella. ——Contact Rob Landry at [email protected]
Gymnastics: Tigers close out regular season against Centenary
March 17, 2010