BATON ROUGE — The 13th-ranked LSU gymnastics team, fresh off its best outing of the year, will host No. 7 Florida in the annual Tiger Attack on Friday night at 7 p.m. at the Maravich Assembly Center.
A week after posting a season high 195.850 in its victory last weekend over Towson State, Centenary and Texas Woman’s University, LSU (5-2) will face its most critical challenge of the season, as the Gators (5-6) sit six spots higher in the rankings, but less than a single point ahead of the Tigers in their season scoring average.
“This is our biggest meet of the season to date, no question,” said LSU head coach D-D Breaux. “This is our last SEC meet at home, it’s a meet that is within our grasp if we can put it all together. The bottom line is that we have a very good team. We have shown glimpses of that but we have to be solid on four events on Friday night and if we are then we have a shot to hit 196 for the first time this season and win a big competition.”
Friday evening’s meet is LSU’s annual Tiger Attack, a night filled with numerous promotions and giveaways. The Tigers used a raucous crowd of 3,048 at last year’s Tiger Attack to upset then-No. 1 Alabama.
Florida owns a 27-17 lead in the all-time series but the two teams split a pair of meetings a year ago. LSU fell just short during a regular season visit to Gainesville last year and led after three rotations before the Gators rallied to take a narrow decision. Three weeks later the Tigers returned to Gainesville for the SEC Championships and finished tied for second while the Gators finished fourth.
“Florida is a team that we match up very well with,” added Breaux. “They’re a great team and we’re going to have to be at our best on Friday night. We’re very even and it will be the team that makes the fewest mistakes that wins.”
Critical to the Tigers’ success will be strong showings from juniors Nicki Arnstad and Beth Boudreaux, who are both scheduled to compete in the all-around on Friday evening.
Arnstad won the all-around and floor titles last weekend, posting a career high of 39.350 in the all-around and a season best 9.925 on floor. Through five meets this season Arnstad has won four floor and two all-around titles.
Boudreaux won the second beam title of her career last weekend and is scheduled to compete in only her second career all-around. Boudreaux finished fourth in the all-around earlier this season against Georgia.
Marina Degteva picked up wins on both the vault and bars last weekend, posting identical 9.90s in each event. Degteva’s 9.90 on vault was critical, as the Tigers scored better than 49 on the vault for the first time all season in what is, arguably, their weakest event.
“Starting out on vault, it is very important for us to get off to a good start,” said Breaux. “When we go out and hit 49 like we did last week it sets the tone for the rest of the competition. If we can go out and hit on vault and get off to a quick start, I think the team will settle down and do what they are capable of doing.”
Following the Florida meet on Friday, LSU travels to No. 6 Nebraska for the Master’s Challenge, a meet in which four of the five teams competing are ranked in the top 25.