In a season filled with perfect 10s, exciting freshmen and big upsets, the No. 3 LSU gymnastics team nearly eliminated its weakest event: beam.
However, the eradication wasn’t off to a promising start.
After posting a beam score of 49.250 in the season-opening upset against then-No.1 Oklahoma on Jan. 9, their first away meet against then-No. 21 North Carolina State turned out to be a rough weekend on the beam, contributing to a season-low team score of 195.825.
“The girls on that event and the pressure of people trying to compete to get in the lineup has put a little bit of an edge on all the events,” said LSU coach D-D Breaux.
While the team’s beam scores didn’t slip under a 49.175 at home, the rough road continued at the Metroplex Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, on Jan. 30, where their score of 48.600 furthered them away from the win.
LSU went on to enter its main Southeastern Conference stretch with a No. 18 national ranking on the event, and now in the middle of postseason, they rank third.
“In the beginning, we were letting the pressure get the best of us and expected ourselves to be perfect every time we went up,” said junior all-arounder Sydney Ewing. “[Assistant coach] Jay [Clark] always says ‘pressure is what you feel when you don’t know what you’re doing,’ so that’s just something we’ve really taken to heart. When we get to a meet, it’s just like any other routine now.”
In addition to verbal coaching, Breaux credits the team’s consistent training pattern for the spark in consistency.
“Super-sets,” where a routine counts as two practice runs if perfectly executed, added a motivational mind game to beam practices during the offseason.
As the regular season came to a close, Breaux put even more emphasis on the pressure aspects that caused some struggle to the team in the early stages.
“Rather than ‘super-sets’ it’s more of three routines in a row or making a small group of us all hit in a row,” Ewing said. “Just to put that pressure on each other and ourselves, that other girls are depending on you even in practice.”
The result of the season’s process excelled in Gainesville versus then-No. 2 Florida on Feb. 26.
After trailing by .075 going into the fourth rotation, Ewing and junior all-arounder Ashleigh Gnat posted new season high scores, with freshman all-arounder Sarah Finnegan earning a 9.925 for the second time to complete the upset 197.900-197.875.
Finnegan, who is currently tied for fourth in the nation, averages a score of 9.915 on the event, and went on to post two consecutive 9.900s in the following meets and tied her season high again in the SEC Championship on March 19.
“She doesn’t ever seem nervous or bites her nails,” Gnat said. “She’s very level headed and mellow. As an upperclassman, I can appreciate that. I feel confident about her going and she feels confident about me going and that’s what the whole beam lineup and every lineup really is about.”
The Tigers have counted 13 individual beam titles this season, while scoring a total of seven career highs from seven different gymnasts with all but one being higher than 9.825.
“We got people still fighting to get in the lineup and I think it’s just consistency in training,” Breaux said. “[Sophomore all-arounder] Erin Macadaeg is a great leadoff on that event and Ashleigh Gnat is a great anchor. We got some super performances sandwiched in.”