The LSU gymnastics team came up a little short as they fell to No. 2 Alabama, 197.6-196.75.
Coach D-D Breaux said the team needed to perform on a higher level.
“I think we can go 197.2, 197.3.,” Breaux said. “Alabama’s a great team. We got beaten by a great team tonight and we just have to keep pushing because that’s the bar of excellence we have to keep pushing for.”
Breaux said she was happy with the team’s overall performance.
“I was happy,” Breaux said. “I’m not satisfied, but I was happy they gave us as much as we could get out of them tonight. We hit seven beam routines our exhibition person hit, Annie Gagnon, who I’d like to put in the beam line up. I feel like her routine is one the most mature, rhythmic routines we have and if we can get her going in the line up that will give us some flexibility, moving some people in and out. But I was very pleased very much with beam, how focused they were. They were aggressive, we worked beam like we practiced.”
Breaux said she would like to be more consistent the rest of the season.
“It’s not so much the quality of the competition,” Breaux said. “Centenary and TWU, although they’re fine gymnastics schools, its not our goal to compete at a 196. We need to go 196.9. We need to push the bar. We need compete next week with reckless abandon, and I feel we did that at spots but we let up and we had some soft spots.”
April Burkholder scored the only 10.0 set of the night in her floor routine. Burkholder said that she would like to do better in her other events as well.
“On bars I was just trying to get that last handstand, and I bounced over and I had to think fast and recover,” Burkholder said. “Beam was just too many wobbles but going into floor I was determined. I didn’t want to give anything away, not even a .25.”
Burkholder said her floor routine was all about having fun.
“You have to have fun,” Burkholder said. “You gotta be pumped up and excited, just go in with no fear and no regrets.”
Annie Gagnon set a career high with a score of 9.9 on her bar routine.
“I think any time you hit a 9.9 on bars, you’ve got to be happy,” Gagnon said. “This is a career high for me and it’s excellent. I was very happy. At the beginning of the season, I’ve been hitting my routines on bars very good so I’m happy with that. I think the main thing on bars is just to hit your handstands and stick your dismount, and I think as long as you do that I think your going to get a great score. I think that’s what I tried to do.”
Kelly Phelan scored a 9.825 on vault and said she was happy with her performance.
“In the beginning of the year, during training, I was struggling a little bit with the vault because of injury,” Phelan said. “It was a new vault for me so I’m just happy to be consistent.”