BATON ROUGE — Earlier this week the LSU women’s basketball team battled Georgia at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in a match-up of top 10 teams.
Friday night the eighth-ranked Tiger gymnastics team will get their shot, as they welcome No. 2-ranked Georgia to the PMAC for a 7 p.m. showdown.
The Tigers enter with a 1-0 record after an impressive season-opening victory at Kentucky last weekend, while the GymDogs enter Friday night’s meet on a tear and are off to a 5-0-1 start, including a convincing 196.500-195.100 thrashing of Florida in Athens last weekend.
Friday night’s showdown pits the two teams that tied for second at the SEC Championships in Gainesville last year. The meet will be broadcast by ESPN on a tape-delayed basis and aired on Sunday from 1:30-3:30 p.m.
“We’re excited, it’s an SEC meet against a team ranked higher than us,” said LSU head coach D-D Breaux. “It’s an opportunity to face a strong test at home. We’ve got a really tough group of kids. They know how to compete and now we’ll have to see if they can do it when the pressure is on.”
LSU opened the season on fire last weekend with a 194.000-193.000 victory over Kentucky in Lexington. The score was the second highest ever for the Tigers in a season opener. Junior Nicki Arnstad picked up the victory in the all-around, posting a career-high 39.000 while also winning the floor exercise with a 9.875.
It was Arnstad who forged a tied between the two schools a year ago when she nailed a 9.90 on her floor routine in the sixth and final spot to move the Tigers into a second place tie at the SEC Championships, their highest finish since 1995.
The Tigers will also need solid contributions from a pair of other juniors, as Beth Boudreaux and Marina Degteva will have to have big meets for the Tigers to pull the upset. Boudreaux, a native of Dutchtown, La., posted a victory on the bars last weekend, recording a 9.825 while also scoring a pair of 9.775s on beam and floor.
Degteva, a co-captain for the 2001 season, helped the Tigers rally from a deficit after two rotations and scored a 9.80 on bars and a 9.775 on floor.
“We need to have a balanced attack,” added Breaux. “We need balance in all four events. Georgia will go out there and throw a lot more difficulty than we can at this point in time, so we need to be consistent and clean and if we can do that, we can hang with them.”
Georgia returns six All-Americans from last year’s squad that finished third at the NCAA Championships. The GymDogs have won six NCAA titles since 1987, most recently back-to-back titles in 1998-99. The GymDogs are led by NCAA floor champion Suzanne Sears and All-American Kristi Lichey, who earned SEC Athlete of the Week honors after scoring an impressive 39.525 in the all-around against Florida.
The GymDogs own a decisive advantage in the season series, leading the all-time regular season series 30-10-2. The Tigers have not defeated Georgia in a dual meet since 1987.
The road ahead gets no easier for the Tigers following their meet with Georgia. No. 13 Denver comes to the PMAC next Friday night at 7 p.m. and then the Tigers head to Tuscaloosa, Ala., for a match-up with fifth-ranked Alabama on Feb. 2.