The No. 10 LSU gymnastics team (6-8, 2-4 Southeastern Conference) will close out the regular season tonight in the PMAC against West Virginia (14-4, 5-1 East Atlantic Gymnastics League) in its final home meet of the 2012 campaign.
The Mountaineers have had success against SEC opponents this season, boasting a record of 2-0 against the conference. Last week, they upset No. 9 Arkansas, which defeated LSU in Cancun, Mexico, on Jan. 6 and in Fayetteville, Ark., on Jan. 20 and bested Auburn on Feb. 12.
“This is going to be a great meet,” said LSU coach D-D Breaux. “West Virginia is a good team that is coming in with a lot of confidence.”
LSU is looking to extend its win streak to three going into the postseason. Breaux said the team has improved every day since its 196.300-195.700 win over Iowa last week.
“We came back in on Sunday and did not have to push or get excited to get the best out of our team,” Breaux said. “We feel like we’ve maintained consistency in our training cycle, but we’ve also shown a modicum of improvement each time we come in the gym, and that’s all we can expect.”
At this point last season, the Tigers were 3-8 and winless against conference opponents, only scoring above a 196 twice. This season, while the squad’s record is still not pretty, it has shown marked improvement, surpassing the 196 mark seven times.
Sophomore gymnast Sarie Morrison said the team’s growth is reflected in this season’s higher attendance at home.
“There’s more excitement this year because we’re a better team,” Morrison said. “We bring more to the plate this year. We get the crowd involved a lot more, and they seem to come back and enjoy everything just because we’re out there having so much fun.”
 
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