The 2016 LSU gymnastics team’s opening meet ended the way the Tigers preferred after an outpouring of pre-game hype revving up the fans to record attendance numbers.
LSU advanced to 1-0 to begin its season, as it added its 17th-straight home win in the PMAC in an upset victory against No. 1 Oklahoma, 196.950-196.725.
Saturday was the first glance at the top-ranked freshman class in the nation, as LSU defeated No. 1 Oklahoma — the first time the Tigers defeated a top-ranked team in the PMAC since Feb. 5, 2010, when they won against Alabama, 196.475-196.050.
“That was great,” LSU coach D-D Breaux said about defeating the then-No. 1 Alabama in 2010, comparing the former victory to Saturday’s win. “But, this is greater.”
The Sooners’ regular-season win streak was ended after three seasons when it last lost to LSU on Feb. 9, 2014, in Norman, Okla. With roughly 30 Sooner fans out chanting “O-U!” out of 8,228 Tiger fans on Saturday — a season-opening gymnastics record in the PMAC, and fourth-largest crowd in program history — the Tigers excelled.
“For us to be able to go out there and share that with this amazing Tiger crowd was like being at a football game,” Breaux said. “It was so loud on the floor it was like we were at a football game. Or, it was like we were all in the stands for the Kentucky [versus LSU] basketball game. I told the kids after that was over, ‘That’s what we want to feel.’”
Regardless of the swirling excitement around LSU’s first-ever, top-five showdown to start a season, the first meet jitters never settled in, a surprised Breaux said.
“We had freshman in every lineup in critical positions and they kept giving us what we needed and building momentum for the people behind them,” Breaux said. “It was an amazing team effort, and I tell you what, as a coaching staff, all coaches were extremely gratified about how this team handled themselves tonight.”
LSU opened on vault, and collected a 49.250 team score. A 9.900 from senior Randii Wyrick and junior all-arounder Ashleigh Gnat boosted the Tigers ahead of the Sooners to begin the meet. All-arounder Myia Hambrick completed an impressive 9.850 run with a leg-swinging, high-five from vault coach Bob Moore.
The Tigers advanced to the uneven bars as their second event, and produced a team score of 98.225 at the halfway point, .050 behind Oklahoma at 98.275.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Breaux said about vault and bars. “We knew that we weren’t stick ready. We knew that we weren’t going to drill a lot of landings. But, we were hoping that our execution would be good enough throughout the routine, that we would be rewarded for what we did.”
To begin the latter-half of the meet, LSU moved to beam, its meet-swallowing kryptonite from last season.
Breaux said how LSU performs on the two events, uneven bars and balance beam, will formulate either wins, or losses, in respective meets.
On Saturday, LSU won beam and not bars, but it was enough to seal its first victory.
The Tigers produced a sensational set on the balance beam event with a team score of 49.200, after beginning with a fall from sophomore beam-specialist Erin Macadaeg. Strong routines from Gnat, 9.875, and true-freshman Lexie Priessman, 9.725, and Sarah Finnegan, 9.925, kept the Tigers within reach of a victory as they headed into the last event, floor.
Finnegan’s routine features a triple-turn, a technically-difficult 720-spin only inches above the beam.
What other gymnast in the NCAA performs the move such as Finnegan’s?
“None,” she said.
“I don’t think you realize how hard that is,” said senior Shae Zamardi.
“She pretty much rocks the house like that everytime,” Breaux said after Finnegan received a team-high score on the event. “I told her, ‘you’re the most beautiful beam worker in this place, so do what you can do.’”
After reviving its chances after a slow start on beam, LSU — while riding its wave of momentum from beam, which Breaux calls “a very dangerous drug” — moved to floor, its final event.
“They were taking it in spoonfuls tonight,” Breaux said of the Tigers momentum.
“[Oklahoma} knew when they went to beam, and we went to floor, they could win it there,” Breaux said. “But, this group was not going to be denied. They tumbled like champions.”
After an Oklahoma fall on beam, the Tigers held their own fate to seal the victory, which it did after a 9.775 from true-freshman McKenna Kelley — who performed amidst an ankle injury, which was injured enough associate head coach Jay Clark nearly held Kelley from competing — and a 9.950 from Gnat as the anchor.
Earlier this week, minutes before what many consider LSU’s most important home game of its men’s basketball season on Tuesday, freshman exhibition gymnast Julianna Cannamela, warped the PMAC to hype bypassers for Saturday’s opening meet.
“LSU gymnastics! This Saturday! 4 p.m!,” Cannamela, layered in purple and gold LSU gymnastics gear from her hair ribbon to her sneakers, would scream to the many folks entering before LSU’s 85-67 victory over then-No. 9 Kentucky on Tuesday.
“Yeah!” Cannamela said. “I was in the training room, and we were talking about how pumped we were. Then we saw a lot of people lined up outside for the basketball game and that’s when I was like ‘LSU! Gymnastics! 4 o’clock! Be there!”
And those who were there on Saturday were not let down — for a 17th time in a row.
“That was a pretty significant thing to us,” Breaux said. “We wanted to win. We tried not to look at the scores. We tried to come out with a win.”