BATON ROUGE — Fresh off a breakout victory against Southeastern Conference rival Florida last weekend, the 12th-ranked LSU gymnastics team travels to Lincoln on Saturday afternoon for the Nebraska Master’s Classic at 2 p.m. at the Bob Devaney Sports Center.
The Nebraska Master’s Classic will feature a loaded field that includes No. 6 Nebraska, No. 21 Denver and No. 23 North Carolina State.
The Tigers will be competing without top gymnast Nicki Arnstad, however, who had knee surgery on Wednesday afternoon to repair a torn lateral meniscus in her right knee. The junior will miss 2-4 four weeks and could be back as soon as the Tigers’ regular season finale on March 9, but is definitely expected back in time for the Southeastern Conference Championships on March 23.
Arnstad’s injured her knee in bar warm-ups in the Tigers’ victory against Florida Friday night and still managed to compete during the final two rotations and win the floor with a season-high 9.975 for her fifth floor title in six meets this season.
“We’re looking forward to this competition. It’s exciting because it’s going to give other kids an opportunity to step it up,” said LSU head coach D-D Breaux. “Not have Nicki will hurt us, but we’ll have to get some other people to make some things happen. It’s an incredible competition, it’s four ranked teams from different conferences and different parts of the country. I think we’ll be up to the task.”
In Arnstad’s absence, junior co-captain Marina Degteva will compete in her second all-around of the season and will take Arnstad’s place on beam.
Degteva has been red hot over the past two weeks and has posted wins on vault and bars in each of the Tigers’ past two meets.
Another veteran who will be forced to step it up is senior co-captain Sharene Mamby. After making a strong recovery from an Achilles’ injury that forced her to miss the entire 2000 season, Mamby has been the anchor of the Tigers’ bars lineup all season. Saturday she will get her first crack at the floor exercise and will try to fill Arnstad’s void in the event.
If the Tigers have any shot of upsetting No. 6 Nebraska, junior Beth Boudreaux will need to come up huge on Saturday. The Dutchtown, La., native won the all-around against Florida last weekend with a combined 39.425 and three scores of 9.90 or better.
The Tigers own a combined 11-1 record against the three teams in regular season competition. The Tigers are 2-1 against Nebraska but dropped a postseason decision to the Huskers in their last encounter at the NCAA Region III Championships in Tucson, Ariz., last year.
LSU is 4-0 against Denver all-time including a convincing 195.450-194.275 victory in Baton Rouge earlier this season, while the Tigers are 5-0 against North Carolina State with their most recent victory being at Florida last year in a four-way meet.
Following the Nebraska Master’s Classic, the Tigers head to Auburn for their final regular season SEC match-up. LSU owns a 31-5 lead in the regular season series between the two schools and has won 16 straight decisions in the series overall.