LSU coach D-D Breaux always says “consistency wins.”
But for the first time in years, the LSU gymnastics team has struggled to put up consistently high scores in 2019. The Tigers scored a season low 196.025 in a loss to Kentucky last week, bringing their season average down from 197.015 to 196.850.
Associate head coach Jay Clark, who was filling in for a sick Breaux, said they see consistency in the gym all the time during practices and nothing alarms the coaching staff. He believes that will translate to competition.
“It’s not about what we’re doing physically, it’s more about where they are mentally,” Clark said. “Are they bought into the message? If they are, those things are going to take care of themselves. Consistency wins, yes, but that’s an all encompassing statement. It’s not just the part that the public sees. The message and the approach has to be consistent, too.”
Clark knows that it’s nowhere near time to hit the panic button, but the team does need to be on the right footing mentally in order to compete with some of the best in the country. It’s important for them to know that the sky isn’t falling.
The meets that LSU has lost were all to good teams, including No. 2 Florida and No. 11 Auburn. Clark affirms that the SEC is the toughest conference in the nation, and a few early losses won’t work.
From a personnel standpoint and on paper, Clark said, the Tigers are nearly identical to last year’s team that finished fourth in the nation. But the team is struggling to find the identity that its held on to and was
successful with the last few years.
“I understand how it can appear on the outside, because of how easily things have come the past several years — particularly in the regular season,” Clark said. “If we have to go through a couple of tribulations right now in order to get what we want at the end, I think everybody is going to be much happier at
the end.”
Despite more struggles than LSU is used to, senior all-arounders Sarah Finnegan and McKenna Kelley remain confident in this team.
This year’s team is heavy on underclassmen and has dealt with various injuries across the board, making that adjustment period take longer than expected for LSU.
“That’s obviously not the result we were looking for,” Kelley said. “But it’s the middle of the season and that’s not an excuse, those are just the facts. We’re still looking forward to the end of the season and taking it meet by meet. We’re going to come in the gym and make those adjustments and commit.”
LSU may have seemed effortlessly successful in the past, going undefeated at home for five years straight with four straight Super Six appearances.
“The past teams I’ve been a part of, we’ve just been so successful,” Kelley said. “That doesn’t mean we’re anything less than that this year, I just think our team has so much more we need to experience together.”
And while LSU as a team has not been as consistent in competition as they would like, Finnegan has been the picture of consistency. She averages 9.875 on vault, 9.925 on bars, 9.900 on beam, 9.925 on floor and 39.625 in the all-around.
As LSU hits the home stretch of the season, the Tigers will need multiple gymnasts across the board to step up.
“We believe this is a team that is capable of winning the national championship,” Clark said. “This is not a team that is a fall off from the teams we’ve had in the last three or four years.”