Coming into the season, the No. 25 LSU gymnastics team was planning on showing off many new faces.
With the departure of four seniors from the 2010 team — including three-time national champion Susan Jackson — the Tigers were left with just one senior and two juniors for 2011.
“We are an extremely young team, and we will get beat because there are some teams who can score better and do more difficulty,” said LSU coach D-D Breaux in a news release. “What we need to do is stay in the process and show composure and teach them how to compete and be a team.”
LSU (0-2, 0-1) opened its season at Oregon State, where it struggled at times and lost, 195.400-193.350.
Despite the loss, Breaux was pleased with her team’s effort.
“I felt like the scoring was a little bit tight, but for us to come here this far, these kids gave us 100 percent,” Breaux said. “I could not have asked them to compete any harder, to have more spirit or to give us a more positive effort.”
Then, in preparation for the Southeastern Conference opener at Auburn, the decision was made to sit out junior Gloria Johnson for the season with an ankle injury.
“This week we decided to concede the season for Gloria Johnson,” Breaux said. “Her ankle is not responding to treatment, so she is scheduled for surgery this week.”
Senior Samantha Engle also fell victim to the injury bug Wednesday, when she hurt her ankle. Engle was forced to sit out of the Auburn meet.
With Engle and Johnson out of the lineup, LSU had only one upperclassman — junior Ashley Lee — available to perform.
The lack of depth made things difficult for the Tigers, but they managed to post an improved score of 194.475, but fell to Auburn by .300.
“Tonight we saw an extremely young team put together a very emotional effort,” Breaux said. “But for a few immature errors on beam, we could have won this competition.”
The Tigers held a .350 advantage halfway through the meet, but struggled down the stretch on the floor exercise and balance beam.
Leading the way for the Tigers was redshirt freshman Kaleigh Dickson, who competed in the all-around and finished second — just .050 behind the winner, Auburn’s Petrina Yokay.
Though the team is winless in its first two meets, Breaux has bigger goals for the team.
“Winning or losing for us at this point is not the epicenter of what we are trying to do,” Breaux said. “What we are trying to do is build a team culture and have these young athletes understand what it is to continue to fight, and we saw a lot of that tonight.”
 
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Contact Rob Landry at [email protected]