Coming off an outstanding showing against No. 8 Denver, the LSU gymnastics team prepares to face No. 7 Florida in a dual meet tonight at 7 p.m. in the PMAC. The meet will be aired on a tape delay by ESPN.
LSU assistant coach Bob Moore said the ESPN cameras should not affect the team’s performance or the coaches philosophy.
“We gotta be in the purple zone,” Moore said.
The purple zone is what the team ,calls complete focus on oneself and the LSU team. Moore said unlike football which brings out a defense to stop the offense of the other team, there is nothing a gymnast can do to interfere with the performance of the other team. LSU’s philosophy is to not concern itself with the performances of the other team.
The Gators are also coming off a victory over the No. 10 University of Washington. Florida’s Erin Pendleton scored a perfect ten on the bar,s and Florida scored its season high and third highest score in school history, finishing with a 196.950.
“We’re just as good as Florida,” said Moore, who feels LSU needs to remain focused during the whole meet no matter how Florida performs.
It looks to be a good matchup as the two teams scored close to each other last weekend, with the Tigers also scoring a season high 196.625.
After last week’s performance, the Tigers moved up two places in NCAA rankings to 12th, and junior Lindsay Beddow and freshmen April Burkholder and Katherine Hilton moved into national individual rankings.
Burkholder is tied for 25th on the floor exercise, while Hilton took the fifth place ranking on bars after only one performance, which earned her a 9.925.
Beddow is currently ranked 12th in the nation on the bars with a season average of 9.862, even though she has not scored more than a 9.90 on the event in her college career. Moore feels Beddow has the capabilities to not only be consistent on the bars, which has earned her the top ranking, but also a high scorer for the team.
“She’s very capable,” Moore said. “Lindsay’s problem is her own belief system.”
Moore said when she is nervous, she “slinks back into her comfort zone” instead of performing aggressively.