The LSU gymnastics team did what it set out to do in 2014.
The Tigers (26-9, 5-2 Southeastern Conference) broke their team scoring record three times and notched the program’s highest finish in school history by placing third at the NCAA Super Six Championship.
Junior all-arounder Rheagan Courville captured her second-straight national vault title, and coach D-D Breaux won National Coach of the Year recognition while associate head coach Jay Clark and assistant coach Bob Moore earned National Assistant Coach of the Year honors.
“This team and the coaching staff set some goals, and I think that they really lived up to everything we asked them to do,” Breaux said. “They stayed in the process, they created consistency for themselves.”
LSU entered the season with a roster hardened by back-to-back Super Six appearances, and it picked up right where it left off in 2013. The Tigers posted the highest season-opening score in school history with a 197.200 against Centenary and ripped off a four-meet win streak after falling at Georgia the following week.
One of LSU’s signature performances came on Feb. 9 in a 197.650-197.325 win at then-No. 2 Oklahoma, which won a share of the national championship.
The Tigers set the program-high score with a 197.875 at the Metroplex Challenge six days later. Courville recorded a perfect 10 on vault and junior all-arounder Lloimincia Hall turned in one of her three perfect scores on floor.
“Of course we wanted to win, but the experience of being here on a podium and going against a top three team two weeks in a row will keep putting a sharper edge on the knife,” Breaux said following the meet.
Though LSU suffered a half-point defeat at eventual co-national champion Florida the week after the Metroplex Challenge, the Feb. 28 showdown with Missouri showed just how sharp the Tigers were.
LSU, which rose to No. 1 after the Metroplex meet, broke the school record again with a 198.050 against Missouri before handily defeating North Carolina State and Kentucky to close the regular season. But the Tigers couldn’t carry that momentum into the SEC championship, instead finishing third with a 197.325 team score.
“We got beat a few times, and we did not have a great meet at SECs,” Breaux said. “But we used that as a building block for our regional championship, where the kids had the best meet that I’ve ever been associated with as an LSU coach.”
Boasting the No. 3 overall seed in the NCAA tournament, LSU returned to top form two weeks later and shattered the scoring record with a 198.325 to clinch the Baton Rouge Regional and a spot in the national semifinals. That mark tied Florida for the highest team score in the country in 2014.
The Tigers notched their second-lowest score of the season in the semifinal round, but their 197.100 was good enough for third place and a spot in the Super Six. LSU bounced back to claim third place in the national championship, and Courville’s 9.9750 vault score tied Arkansas’ Katherine Grable for the title.
“It was the best season so far, hands down,” Courville said. “I can’t think of ending it any other than we did other than being No. 1. We really accomplished every goal we had this season, and I think that’s the most important thing right now.”