The No. 14 LSU gymnastics team hopes to avoid a letdown Friday night when Centenary and Texas Woman’s come to town for a tri-meet in the PMAC at 7 p.m.
The Tigers (2-3, 0-2 Southeastern Conference) are fresh off their strongest performance of the season.
Facing reigning No. 1 Alabama, LSU posted a season high score of 196.750 with season-high team totals on the bars, beam, and floor.
LSU coach D.D. Breaux said she was pleased by the effort her team displayed against Alabama.
“The thing that we have been preaching is to continue to push, and we saw that Friday night,” Breaux said. “They never gave up. They continued to push, and if Alabama would have had one more fall on beam, it would have been a different outcome.”
Sophomore gymnast Lindsey Thompson said the team finally performed up to their potential.
“I think we did so good last week,” Thompson said. “We finally pulled together as a team and did how we do in practice.”
The Tigers now hope to shift their focus to Friday’s meet against Centenary and Texas Woman’s. LSU is 19-1 overall against Centenary and holds a 5-0 all-time record against Texas Woman’s.
Breaux said that she is worried about a letdown with her team coming off their performance against the No. 1 team in the country and with No. 11 Arkansas and No. 2 Georgia next on the schedule.
“We’re trying to coach against that this week,” Breaux said. “We’re trying to challenge them to take their gymnastics not just to practice, but to practice perfect. I always believe that you’re going to perform like you practice. I never think that something’s going to be better than I see day in and out in the practice gym. And if we perform Friday night like we’ve been practicing this week, we’ll have a stellar performance.”
Freshman Kelly Phelan said this meet is an important opportunity for LSU to raise the national ranking.
“We’re ranked 14th now and we still want to get higher rankings,” Phelan said. “We still have to compete like we’re competing against Georgia or competing against Alabama or Florida. We have to keep getting higher scores, keep moving up and not back down.”
LSU will be led in the tri-meet by sophomore April Burkholder, fresh off her second career perfect 10.0 in the last meet.
Last season’s SEC Freshman of the Year, Burkholder is showing no signs of a sophomore slump, ranking seventh in the country on the vault, ninth on the floor and 14th in the all around.
Burkholder’s growth and improvement this season is an example on what the LSU coaching staff is looking for from the team as a whole.
“That’s what gymnastics is all about, growing and getting momentum for the course of the season, getting your consistency, being the best you can be,” Breaux said. “Friday night is a chance to prove that our meet against Alabama was not just lucky, that we really are that good and we really can compete with any team on any given night.”
Those LSU students with the ability to walk on their hands are urged to attend Friday’s meet.
The first 50 students to sign up at the promotions table will be eligible for a handstand contest to be held immediately following the competition. The last person left standing on their hands will win a $100 prize.