BATON ROUGE- If the LSU gymnastics team is to reach its season-long goal of making the “Super Six” at the NCAA Championships, it must first start by advancing through the field at the NCAA Region III Championships at the McKale Center in Tucson, Ariz., Saturday evening.
Placed in arguably the most difficult region in the nation, the seventh-ranked Tigers will compete against No. 5 Nebraska, No. 17 Arizona State, host Arizona, Missouri and Illinois-Chicago. The top two teams advance to the NCAA Championships in Boise, Idaho from April 13-15.
“We’ve got our work cut out for ourselves with the level of competition we’ve been placed with but we’ll be ready to go,” said LSU head coach D-D Breaux. “You’re going to have to face tough teams no matter which region you end up in. We’ve faced tough teams all year long in the Southeastern Conference. The bottom line is that we have to go out and perform.”
While the Tigers drew a difficult hand, they couldn’t be any hotter as the Region III Championships approach. In a one month stretch, the Tigers have recorded three of the five highest scores in school history in their last four outings.
The Tigers opened with a breakthrough score of 196.800 in their victory over Centenary on Feb. 18. After a narrow loss to Florida on Feb. 25, the Tigers rebounded with a season-high effort of 196.950 to defeat Auburn. The Tigers then went on to finish second at the SEC Championships in their most recent outing on March 18, recording a 196.825 to tie Georgia and finish just behind champion Alabama.
“We’ve been competing extremely well over the course of the last month,” added Breaux. “We can’t get complacent on what we’ve done to this point, however, we have to go in and realize that it’s going to take that kind of score once again to qualify for Boise.”
Illinois-Chicago is the only team the Tigers have faced this season. The Tigers finished second to Oklahoma at the Texas Woman’s four-way meet on Feb. 12, while Illinois-Chicago finished fourth. The Tigers do own a 41-24-1 overall record against their regional opponents this weekend, including a combined 19-9 record against the other five teams in NCAA postseason competition.
The Tigers will be looking for their first regional title since 1986 when they swept the field in Baton Rouge. LSU appeared to have its second regional title last year in Baton Rouge, but an inquiry and an overrule later, the Tigers finished second to Stanford but still advanced to the national meet. The Tigers have finished in the top three at regional competition 16 of the last 17 years.
A year ago Shanyn MacEachern had the all-around title won, had it not been for a fall on beam. This year she will clearly be one of the favorites in the event. The sophomore is coming off a season-high 39.375 in her third place finish in the all-around at the SEC Championships and has not gone less than 39.275 in the all-around this year.
Other top returnees for the Tigers who will look to make an impact this weekend include Dutchtown, native Beth Boudreaux, who tied with MacEachern for the title on the bars a year ago. Stacey Wegener finished fourth on the beam, as did Kim Descalopoulis on the floor. Abbey Burns finished fifth in the all-around and third on the bars in Baton Rouge a year ago.