LSU’s gymnastics seniors had one more apparatus in their LSU careers, and it just so happened to be the one event where all four seniors competed: the floor.
All four performed memorably, each posting season highs en route to a season-best 49.425 on the floor. The Tigers finished the meet with a season-high 197.150 in their victory against Iowa (195.400).
Senior Susan Jackson — who, despite taking home three individual titles, admittedly had an off night with a meet-best all-around score of 39.525 — posted a season-best 9.950 to cap the event.
Her routine had Tiger fans screaming “10,” but the judges disagreed.Jackson, who has never scored a 10 in her career at LSU, said she agreed with the judges. But LSU coach D-D Breaux had a different assessment.
“Relative to what I’ve seen going on around the country … I definitely think it was a 10,” Breaux said. “As easy as they went 9.95, they could have given her a 10.”
The three other Tiger seniors took home the other best scores on the floor, with Kayla Rogers leading off the apparatus with a 9.90, Summer Hubbard hitting a 9.875 and Sabrina Franceschelli posting a 9.850.
No senior scored lower than a 9.800 in any event on the evening, and the Tigers got their first 197 since Feb. 20, 2009.
“That was our cheer during practice this week: ‘Super seniors, 197,” Jackson said.
The Tigers got off to a hot start right away with their second-best vault score of the season, a 49.325, that included a pair of seniors nailing some of their best vaults of the season.
Rogers stuck a season-best 9.875 as the leadoff gymnast and was followed by Franceschelli’s 9.850.
No Tiger vaulted worse than a 9.800, as Rogers, Jackson and sophomore Ashley Lee shared the event title. It was Lee’s first career individual title.
The Tigers turned around with a 49.200 on the bars, highlighted by Jackson’s second individual title of the night when she posted a 9.900 on the apparatus.
The other seniors also had outstanding bar scores, as Hubbard posted a 9.825 while Franceschelli posted her second 9.850 on the night in front of her mother and grandmother, who flew down from Boston for the meet.
“It was a lot to take in at first because they never get to come because they live so far away,” Franceschelli said. “To have them here was something to remember.”
It was an all-class affair on the beam, as two freshmen, along with a sophomore and a junior, aided their elder stateswomen on the beam en route to a 49.200, the second-best score on the apparatus this season.
Freshman Shelby Prunty started off the beam with a season-best 9.800. She was followed by fellow freshman Ericka Garcia, who hit a season-best 9.825 in the third spot for the Tigers.
Hubbard hit a season-high 9.875 on the beam in the fourth spot, and junior Sam Engle scored her second-best score of the season, a 9.900, to capture her third career beam title.
“In practice, we’ve been working really hard on hitting those higher scores,” Engle said. “With tonight being senior night, we wanted to do well for them. And we just got in the zone.”
Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]