Happiness and good memories are not what the LSU gymnastics team remembers about Fort Worth, Texas after last season’s debacle in the NCAA Semifinals.
The Tigers, while having performed well up until balance beam, crumbled on the nation’s biggest stage — which led LSU coach D-D Breaux to call the team’s fifth-place finish in the second semifinal “the all-time biggest disappointment of my career,” after the meet on April 17.
But LSU hopes to change what Texas saw from the Tigers in their last visit.
Junior all-arounder Ashleigh Gnat said she’s excited to bring new thoughts of LSU gymnastics to the same stage as the National Championship at 7 p.m. on Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas, where the No. 6 Tigers will face No. 2 Oklahoma, No. 12 Stanford, No. 16 Missouri and Washington in the Metroplex Challenge.
“I think that we’re going to be able to get out there and show everybody what we’ve been working on and improved on since the last time we were there,” Gnat said.“This is a new team and a new year. We’re going to make a step in the right direction.”
LSU’s new team, as Gnat called it, will be competing in a podium-stage meet for the first time as a group. The podium — an elevated, bouncier, softer surface raised above eye level for the judges and exactly at eye level for fans — is what LSU will have to adjust to in warmups as podium-staged training is impossible to replicate at LSU.
The pressure of competing on a podium is super intensified, Breaux said.
“It gives the equipment a different feel,” Breaux said. “Plus, you’re eye level with your audience. It gives the judges a different level of watching you from down below and it just feels like everything you do is bigger.”
The Tigers will summon their entire team to surround each gymnast in practice to resemble the heat of the moment that Fort Worth will present.
Breaux said the Tigers’ lack of consistency in competition is the weak link of the 2016 team thus far, as they have counted “too many” falls to begin the
season.
“We’re lacking a little bit of consistency,” Breaux said. “We’re having to count a fall in some of our events. That’s very costly. That’s minus five-tenths from your team score. At the same time, we’re having to change our lineup a little bit. We’ve used some of our depth a little bit. We have 15 kids and we want to feel like we can have 10 ready on every event on every weekend.”
The injury-blanketed Tigers have yet to have all gymnasts available for competition, which is a goal for the Metroplex, Breaux said.
Freshmen all-arounders McKenna Kelley and Lexie Priessman have been held from competing for an ankle, and ankle and shoulder injuries, respectively — along with senior all-arounder Jessica Savona who’s battling a yearning ankle injury.
Breaux said she hopes to be able to expand the Tigers’ range on each event with a variety of gymnasts, and the process begins at the Metroplex against a few of the nation’s elite teams.
“That’s our goal,” Breaux said. “Being able to get McKenna Kelley into the floor lineup this weekend was really big. We’d like to get Lexie Priessman into maybe another event. We’d like to get [freshman all-arounder] Sarah Finnegan in on maybe another event. At the same time, we’d like to get Jessica Savona in off of her ‘my foot is hurt’ mentality. And if she does, she’s one of the best tumblers in the country.”
You can reach Christian Boutwell on Twitter @Boutwell_TDR