The currently ranked No. 2 LSU gymnastics is set to take on the No. 4 Florida Gators in a Gainesville showdown that will be one final road test for the Tigers ahead of the postseason’s start.
With an all-time record of 47-78 against the Gators, the Tigers’ team-driven motivation ahead of the competition has set the matchup to be a gritty one following the stellar weekend LSU recently walked away from.
“You go to Oklahoma, you come home for Alabama and see them twice in a weekend and then go to Florida,” head coach Jay Clark said. “I mean, my gosh, that’s probably the most stacked roster in the nation.”
It was just last season that the Tigers defeated Florida, but that hasn’t always been the story. With an all-time record of 8-29 against Florida in Gainesville, LSU has lost four of the last seven regular season matchups against the team, almost all of which were in Gainesville.
“Going up against a higher-ranked team, I think that is a little bit more motivating because we want to do our best and you want to show up to have a good matchup between teams,” Kailin Chio said. “But I think at the end of the day, it’s just how we are as a team and what our standard is for us to get to where we want to go in April.”
This year’s matchup holds a similar story to the recent meetings between both programs, but confidence formed by the Tigers each week could reshape the meet.
Currently, the Gators hold the No. 1 and 2 spots on bars and beam, respectively, with the Tigers following suit at No. 2 and 3.
Vault and floor are a much different story, however, and those events could be the game changers come Sunday night. Florida finds itself ranked No. 7 and No. 12 on those rotations, respectively.
Big scores on these leg events could hand LSU the competitive edge needed to come out on top.
After the Tiger’s Podium Challenge finish, standards are set high for the performances they’ll put out on the floor in Gainesville. Still, it will take more than rankings to win the meet on enemy turf.
“I do think our kids compete better in those environments against those teams than they do against what others might deem as a lesser opponent,” Clark said. “It’s a grind, but it also tends to bring out the best in probably all of our teams.”
As much of the team has emphasized all year, mindset and trust in one another have been the true victories each week, especially in high-pressure environments.
Strong outings against teams like Oklahoma, Alabama and Missouri have reinforced LSU’s confidence regardless of the final result, while also proving its ability to rise to the occasion behind the one-unit mentality.
“I think each meet that we’ve done, we’ve taken a step forward, and now the meet that we just completed is the next standard that we have to keep progressing from,” Amari Drayton said. “I think going into this next meet, we’re just gonna put our heads down, get to work and keep locking in so that we can keep taking steps forward in the right direction.”
Having topped Florida’s weekly overall in five of the eight weeks that both teams have competed this season, LSU enters the final stretch of the regular season behind steady progression. Florida marks a third consecutive top-three matchup to test the Tigers one last time.
“You know, it’s a part of being in the SEC,” Clark said. “I don’t think it’s any different, and you probably have other coaches on this campus that would say the same thing. It’s just part of the gig, and we enjoy it.”
