The LSU gymnastics team has come close in the past but has never been able to bring home the hardware.Now the Tigers are staring down another opportunity to win a national championship.LSU (15-8-1) is in the NCAA championship for the ninth-consecutive season and has a chance to earn a spot in its third-consecutive Super Six.The NCAA Championship is composed of 12 teams split into to two six-team groupings.LSU is in the first group, along with UCLA, Oklahoma, Oregon State, Nebraska and Utah. The group will begin competition at noon today in Gainesville, Fla.The Tigers defeated Oregon State, 196.925-195.525, earlier this season at the PMAC in the Etta James Memorial Meet.The only other team in the group LSU has seen this season is Oklahoma, who competed with LSU in the Penn State Regional two weeks ago. Oklahoma finished in first place in the regional, nearly a full point ahead of LSU.The Tigers need to finish in third place or higher in their group to advance to the Super Six and have a shot to compete for the national crown.Senior Susan Jackson said LSU has focused on polishing the little things during practice the last couple weeks.”Hitting handstands and sticking landings are what is going to get us to Super Six and help us excel,” Jackson said. “So this week we have been focusing on just doing our routines as usual but focusing on everything and perfecting them and making them as good as they can be.”The Tigers will begin on the floor exercise, where they began the regional meet, and will end the meet on the balance beam.Ending the meet on beam will be an advantage for the Tigers, said junior Sam Engle.”We’re the last thing the judges see, and beam has been a really good event for us this year, so we’re going in there pretty confident,” Engle said. If the Tigers advance past the championship grouping, they will move on to the Super Six at 5 p.m. Friday in Gainesville. They would compete against the other top two teams from their group, as well as the three teams that advance from the second group, which includes Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, Michigan, Missouri and Stanford. The second group will begin competition at 6 p.m. tonight in Gainesville.The Tigers are confident they can return to Super Six, Engle said.”If we go in there and do everything we can do, that’s all that really matters to me,” Engle said. “We’ve got three other really good teams in our session, and I know we can beat them. So we need to just keep a level head.”Jackson would love nothing more than to end her career with another appearance in Super Six.”It would be incredible to have made Super Six three times in a row,” Jackson. “We made it the first time my sophomore year, so I think that making it three times would just be icing on the cake. It would be a really good ending to a great career.”—-Contact Rob Landry at [email protected].