The No. 18 LSU gymnastics team will be traveling to Athens, Ga., for the NCAA regional meet April 2, the NCAA announced Monday.
LSU is the No. 3 seed in the Athens Regional, preceded by No. 1 UCLA (No. 6 ranked) and No. 2 Georgia (No. 8 ranked). North Carolina State, Maryland and West Virginia round out the group at seed Nos. 4-6.
The top two teams from each of the six regionals will advance to the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championships in Cleveland, Ohio, from April 15 to April 17.
LSU coach D-D Breaux said LSU has the ability to advance in the regional and make it to the NCAA championships, but it’s a matter of performing cleanly.
“You can’t make mistakes if you want to advance,” Breaux said. “The reason we’re seeded where we are is because we’ve continued to make mistakes throughout the season.”
This is the 27th-consecutive postseason berth for LSU (5-13, 0-6), which went winless in Southeastern Conference regular-season competition for the first time since 1993. The team is coming off a fifth-place finish in the SEC Championships this past weekend.
LSU extended its streak to 10 years with an All-SEC gymnast when freshman Sarie Morrison was named second-team All-SEC in vault with a 9.90 performance Saturday.
In the SEC championship meet, LSU set season highs on the vault (49.350) and uneven bars (49.150) after a shaky first round of 47.925 on the balance beam.
“We could have finished third at SECs with the performances we had on vault, bars and floor,” Breaux said. “I’ve seen what the girls do in practice. And we were a 49 team on beam for a portion of the year.”
Breaux said improving on the balance beam will be critical leading up to the regional meet.
“If I can get the beam team to train like they need to train and do what they need to do, we’re good enough to beat UCLA or Georgia,” Breaux said. “We just have one shot to do it.”
 
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Contact Rachel Whittaker at [email protected]