The No. 19 LSU gymnastics team looked to build off last weekend’s season-high performance when No. 11 Arkansas visited the PMAC on Friday night.
And in three of the four events, the team did just that.
LSU (2-6, 0-3) scored more than a 49.000 on the vault, balance beam and floor exercise.
But the Tigers’ undoing came in the second rotation of the meet on the uneven bars, where they fell a total of three times.
The falls forced LSU to count a 9.250 and a 9.225, which gave Arkansas (4-2, 3-1) a lead it would not surrender. The Gym’Backs went on to win the meet, 195.325-194.875.
“We had a great week [of practice] on bars, very few misses. It was just a great week,” said LSU coach D-D Breaux. “We just have to believe in what we’re doing. I think the kids believe in the coaches, and we certainly believe in these kids. At no point in this meet did we ever give up.”
The woes on bars may have cost LSU a victory Friday, but the Tigers took away plenty of positives from the meet.
After posting a season-low team score last weekend against BYU, the Tigers rebounded Friday with a 49.075 — their second highest score of the year on the apparatus.
Junior Ashley Lee and freshman Sarie Morrison tied for the vault title with scores of 9.900.
The scores set a career high for Morrison, and Lee tied her career high.
“In practice, we’ve just been working on having the right technique to stick our landings,” Lee said. “So I didn’t go into the vault saying, ‘I need to stick this landing.’ I just thought, ‘Do what I’ve been practicing and prepare for the landing,’ and it just happened perfectly.”
LSU notched a season-best 49.025 on the balance beam, and freshman Maliah Mathis won her first career title in the event.
The Tigers also scored a 49.000 or better for the second consecutive week on the floor exercise.
Individually, Mathis and Morrison stole the show, winning two individual titles apiece. Morrison captured the all-around title for the second consecutive week.
“It is such a great feeling and great accomplishment,” Morrison said. “After we had a little mess up on bars, we came back and we hit really solid on beam and floor.”
The Tigers close out their three-meet homestand next weekend against No. 4 Georgia, where they hope to eliminate the errors and put all the pieces together.
“We’re inching toward putting that full meet together,” Breaux said. “Sure, we want to climb up in the rankings and we want to do a lot, but we’ve got some great scores and we’ve got some great gymnasts on this team.”
 
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Contact Rob Landry at [email protected]