After multiple injuries throughout her career, LSU junior gymnast Sarie Morrison is no stranger to watching the vault competition from the sidelines.
The only difference is she’s never done it the week after scoring a perfect 10 in the event — something she’ll have to do when the No. 6 LSU gymnastics team travels to No. 14 Auburn on Friday night.
“We have to be careful with her ankle,” said LSU coach D-D Breaux. “Sarie has a big frame, and she manages herself really well with her fitness and her commitment to giving us 100 percent. We just feel like if we try going with her at this point in the season, we won’t have 100 percent of her in the postseason.”
Morrison compared the vault competition to riding a bike in the sense that she never really loses a feel for the competition despite skipping the event, sometimes weeks at a time.
According to Breaux and Morrison, the Dallas native will only compete in the vault at home meets and in the postseason in an attempt to give her as much rest as possible.
Morrison scored the team’s second consecutive perfect 10 after sophomore Lloimincia Hall scored a 10 in the floor competition the week before. LSU hasn’t scored consecutive 10s since the 2004 season and never by two different gymnasts.
“Being able to get back into the event was exciting,” Morrison said. “To be able to go out and get a 10 is such an honor and to be able to share that with my teammates and everyone in the PMAC. … To be able to come back and get this 10 after all the adversities I’ve had is amazing.”
Morrison’s strong vault performance this season propelled the Tigers to No. 2 in the nation for the event — the same ranking LSU achieved for floor exercises.
This weekend will be the second meet of a four-meet stretch in which the Tigers will face a top-20 program. Auburn, which isn’t considered a traditional power in the gymnastics world, has been on a steady incline in recent years.
“They’re going to be pushing hard to make this a pivotal point in the season for them and do it over LSU,” Breaux said. “They’re going to jam as many students into the lower level of that bowl as they can. … We have to rise up and be as good as the best team in the country in order to fulfill our goal for the next two weeks.”
