The balance beam hasn’t exactly been senior Lauren Klein’s best friend. Klein has missed a total of 17 meets since her junior season because of two separate injuries on the apparatus. The Woodlands, Texas, native injured her right ankle last season in a Feb. 1, 2008, meet against Kentucky and competed only once the rest of the season. She posted a 9.625 on the floor in the NCAA Super Six. “I was upset because I was doing really well and successfully competing in three events,” Klein said. “So that one was upsetting, but I knew I had another year.” Klein injured her other ankle while warming up on the beam in the Tigers’ first meet this season in Cancun, Mexico. “When I got hurt in Cancun, I was really upset because I just didn’t understand why it happened,” Klein said. “I was like, ‘I’m being punished.'” Klein’s absence in the lineup has been a noticeable loss for the Tigers. The 2007 second-team All-Southeastern Conference selection was a mainstay for the Tigers on the vault, beam and floor her sophomore season. Klein has career highs of 9.975 on the floor, 9.900 on the vault and 9.800 on the beam. She averaged a 9.843 her sophomore year on the floor – ranking her third nationally with a regional qualifying score of 9.93 – and was averaging a 9.725 last season before her first ankle injury. She also earned 10 scores of 9.900 or higher on the floor her sophomore year. The Tigers average a 48.887 on the floor this season, well     below their 49.158 average last season. “Not having her presence on [the floor] has been a real contributing factor to us struggling on the floor,” said LSU coach D-D Breaux. “She was a real consistent performer for us on that event.”Klein has had limited action this season because of the injury she suffered in Cancun. She has only competed three times for the Tigers, all on bars. Klein said bars has always been her biggest struggle, so the one upside to the injury is it forced her to work on her weakness. “If you would have asked somebody if I could compete [on] bars in college, they would have laughed at you,” Klein said. “I’ve come a long way.” Though Klein is not able to help the team on the floor this season, she has contributed by supporting and helping her teammates through their struggles.LSU junior Kayla Rogers took over Klein’s spot in the lineup after her injury last season. She said the two have worked together by supporting each other.”That’s the only thing that gets us through practice, through the meets, is being supportive and yelling and screaming for each other,” Rogers said. “She’s really good about keeping my head in the right place, so I try to do the same for her.”—-Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]