Stands full of chanting fans in LSU gear may be a scenario reminiscent of a football game, but the crowd that filled Family Christian Academy’s gym Saturday was hardly in the thousands, and the venue was definitely no Tiger Stadium.Here, a crowd of committed fans cheered the LSU powerlifting team to a first-place finish. The team also racked up several individual national titles at the 2009 Collegiate National Powerlifting Championships held this weekend in Baton Rouge.The competition is divided into a men’s and a women’s division, both of which are further separated into different weight classes. Each class comprises three lifts: squat, deadlift and bench press. The best legal lift from three attempts on each lift goes toward the lifter’s total record, and the highest total record determines the winner of each class.In the women’s division, University student Ellie Becnel placed first in the 105 weight class, and Pamela Bartz won first in the 148 weight class. Brittany Kean placed first in the 198-plus weight class Kelly Heim and Kayrie Spinney added to the LSU women’s titles, placing in second in the 123 weight class and second in the 132 weight class, respectively.Amber Fontenot placed third in the 165 weight class, and Jasmine Moxley placed fifth in the 123 weight class.Samantha Baker, former cheerleader turned top-five world champion powerlifter, took first place in the 132 weight class and won best female lightweight lifter. In the process, Baker set three new national records with her 407-pound squat, 380-pound deadlift and 985-pound total record.”Sam’s … probably the best there ever will be,” said LSU coach Arval Bridges. “She’s awesome — all the girls are. Our girls have just done outstanding.”The men’s team, while fewer in number than most other schools, is also “a very strong, high-quality team,” Bridges said.Cody Albright placed sixth in the 275 weight class.Josh Dear won first place in the men’s 132 weight class with a total record of 1,090 —  a welcome surprise to both the anthropology sophomore and the team.”I was really amped up about [my performance],” Dear said. “I didn’t expect to … win, but all the cards fell right. It’s pretty awesome.”Three other LSU lifters placed in the top: Andy Hughes placed sixth in the 165 weight class, and Stephen “Reece” Verbois and Zack Wagner placed second in their weight classes, both getting pushed from the top spot because of their body weight.”[If] there’s a tie … the lifter with the lowest body weight wins,” Bridges explained.A lifter’s body weight can be very important in those events. Many lifters, like Dean, go on strict diets to prepare for nationals.”It was hardcore,” Dear said. “I had to lose about 7 to 8 pound to compete … but the [national title] made it that much more worth it. I’ll be eating as much as I can for the next couple weeks until I start training for next year’s nationals.”The powerlifters usually train three days a week for a couple of hours, but for an event like nationals, the team trained four hours daily, Bridges said.”In this year’s training cycle, our coaches put in a lot of time … and really trained us for a meet setting,” Baker said. “We started doing a 3-by-3, which means we do all three lifts, three days a week.”While it’s still unknown which lifters will qualify for the world championship in Brazil, Bridges thinks there is a definite possibility of a world champion in the LSU powerlifting team’s future.
“Everybody thinks of football as being the culmination of dedication, and I … disagree,” Bridges said. “These kids do more than anybody I’ve ever seen — they live and breathe this, just as any scholarship athlete does. We could have a world champion on our team, but Monday they’re going to go back to LSU and nobody’s going to know it. It’s obvious we don’t do this so we can stand in front of 5,000 people. We do it because we love the sport.”
 
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