The No. 6 LSU gymnastics team extended its 19-game home winning streak to 20 on Friday night, defeating No. 8 Auburn with a season-high team score of 197.825 to 197.125.
Coming off a season-high road scoring performance against then-No. 11 Georgia, the Tigers (8-2, 4-1 Southeastern Conference) were ecstatic to see their momentum carrying over tremendously to their third top 10 matchup of the season; and it showed early.
Sophomore all-arounder Myia Hambrick delivered a preview of what was going to come already in the first rotation on vault. Her 9.900 marked a new season-high and was followed by junior Ashleigh Gnat’s 9.975, which once again proved why her Yurchenko double full averages the highest score in the nation at 9.943.
“We know what we need to do better, but the thing that we did so well tonight was we capitalized on our momentum and we let each performance build and make the next performance better,” said LSU coach D-D Breaux. “That’s how you have to compete to win a championship.”
Senior Jessica Savona started the Tigers out strong with a 9.850 and Hambrick followed with a 9.925 before freshman Julianna Cannamela featured the Tigers only fall of the meet.
Not letting any nerves affect them, freshman all-arounder Sarah Finnegan and junior all-arounders Sydney Ewing and Shae Zamardi brought any lost momentum back to post a 49.375 bars score.
“We have a really young team,” Savona said. “With a team like us, it’s a little bit hard to get it going from the beginning, so it’s not that we’re upset with the scores we’ve had previously in the year, but we’re growing as a team in our scores and our performances. We’re putting our momentum together and using that, because as D-D says ‘momentum is a powerful drug.’”
After finishing with a team score of 49.300 on beam and Ewing tying her career-high of a 9.875 on the event, the Tigers headed into the final rotation with a 0.450 lead over Auburn.
Hambrick clinched the all-around title with her following 9.900-performance, tying her career-high of 39.625 without posting a single lower than a 9.900.
While also tying her career-high, Savona’s 9.950 was a tremendous contribution to LSU’s event score of 49.700, tying its best floor score in school history.
“It has been a little bit of a struggle trying to get back and everything,” Savona said, “but we’ve been working on being positive and just trying to get back as fast as possible and trying to be healthy. This was just a great meet to do so. I felt confident, great and it was for the team so it was just phenomenal.”
In the end, Gnat showed the third-largest crowd in program history of 10,177 why you never leave before it’s over. Finishing her anchoring floor routine with not a single error, Gnat closed the meet a perfect 10, posting the final LSU new career-high.
Gnat is the nation’s only gymnast to have earned a perfect score three times this season.
“These are the little things we’ve been working on and all that hard work has really paid off,” Gnat said. “Tonight we showed a great improvement, but I think that we still have places we can continue to work on and I don’t think this a peak for us. We’re going to continue moving forward in the post-season.”

Gallery • 4 Photos

Javier Fernández

LSU junior Ashleigh Gnat prepares for her floor rutine during the Tigers' 197.825-197.125 victory against Auburn on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016 in the PMAC.