The No. 2 LSU gymnastics team is in the middle of a seven-meet streak in which it faces a Southeastern Conference opponent, and it’s the third week in a row it will face highly-ranked talent.
This time, LSU (7-1, 4-0 SEC) is competing against No. 9 Auburn at 7:00 p.m. tonight at Auburn Arena in Auburn, Alabama.
After tallying the second-best score in the nation, 198.075, without senior all-arounder Jessie Jordan, LSU returns Jordan and senior all-arounder Britney Ranzy, who has been held out of competition all season with an unspecified injury.
Jordan is expected to compete in the bars and beam lineups, while Ranzy will be in the vault lineup.
In preparation for Auburn (3-2, 1-2 SEC), LSU went back to the basics.
Instead of focusing on sticking the landings, assistant coach Bob Moore had the gymnasts focus on everything leading up to the landing.
“We were preaching about sticking, and I think they were getting ahead of themselves,” Moore said. “That was creating a problem. Even though we do refer to sticking and how important that is, it’s really about everything else that leads up to that.”
Moore said a properly performed roundoff followed by getting her hands off the horse quickly will put the gymnast at the perfect angle, resulting in a stuck landing.
LSU enters the matchup highly ranked in all four events — No. 2 in the nation on bars, beam and floor and No. 6 on vault. Auburn ranks in the top-10 nationally only on bars and beam, where it is No. 9 on both.
LSU has the advantage on paper, but Moore insists anything is possible in an SEC matchup.
Last season, then-No. 14 Auburn nearly beat then-No. 2 LSU at the PMAC. Auburn took the lead after the second rotation and hung on until the fourth, where LSU posted a 49.525 on floor to defeat Auburn, 197.175-196.850.
“I don’t care if its in tiddlywinks, SEC matchups are always tough,” Moore said. “Especially when you go there and you’re in their house. It will be a great meet. We have to go in there and take care of business. The only way to do that is to go out there and do gymnastics to the best of our ability.”
LSU will be at Auburn Arena this time, surrounded by a rowdy Auburn-themed crowd, after competing in front of 7,722 LSU fans in last week’s victory against then-No. 9 Georgia.
With a colossal showdown against No. 4 Florida on Feb. 20 at the PMAC looming, the gymnasts said they are still putting all their focus on the matchup against Auburn first.
“We stay in our purple zone and focus on one meet at a time,” said sophomore all-arounder Sydney Ewing. “We don’t think about it as competing against [Auburn] we just think about what we can do. We can’t control how the other team performs. We focus only on the things that we can control.”
You can reach Jacob Hamilton on Twitter @jhamilton_TDR.