The final phase for LSU gymnastics journey to a national championship beings on April 4 in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. The Tigers are hosting one of the regionals with the hopes of national championship on the line.
The third-ranked Tigers earned the No. 1 seed for the Baton Rouge regional and will compete on Friday as they will have Thursday off. Thursday, No. 8 George Washington and No. 9 Lindenwood will compete. The winner will advance to the second round on April 5. The afternoon session of the second round will start at 2 p.m. and will feature No. 6 Utah, No. 11 Minnesota, BYU and Arkansas.
The evening session will begin at 7 p.m. and will include LSU, No. 14 Auburn, Arizona State and the winner of the first round. The top two teams from each second round session will advance to the Regional Final at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 6. The top two teams from those will then advance to the NCAA Championships on April 19-20 in Fort Worth, Texas.
As the No. 1 seed in the regional, LSU will compete in Olympic order. If the Tigers finish first in the second round they will start on beam in the regional final and if they finish second then the squad will open on vault.
While every meet presents itself with challenges, the Tigers will have to beat the Auburn team that they lost to early in the season and then beat a tough Arkansas team for the second time this season.
“At this beginning of the season, we have some inexperienced girls that were here last year but might not have gotten the opportunity to compete,” senior Sarah Finnegan said. “It’s different when you’re in the gym and doing the numbers. Then you start competing weekend after weekend and you start getting used to it and at the end it’s automatic.”
The Tigers will also face the Utah Red Rocks, who recently placed second to UCLA in the PAC-12 Championship. Utah received a score of 198.025 in their conference championships while the Tigers reached a 197.900, which was a high for the Tigers.
While a challenge is always welcomed from the girls in purple and gold, the Tigers must continue to focus on getting better and doing what they do best in order to make it to Fort Worth.
“I think that’s what we’ve learned throughout this year, where we really have matured as a team,” Finnegan said. “We’ve gotten better at competing, we’ve gotten better at adjusting to things here and there. We’re just going to progress as we finish up this season.”
