BATON ROUGE — The LSU gymnastics team will take to the road for its final regular season SEC match-up Friday evening at 7 p.m., as the Tigers travel to Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum at Auburn, looking to clinch their third straight winning season in league action.
LSU (6-2 overall, 2-2 in SEC action) returns to action after missing last weekend’s competition in Nebraska due to travel complications. The Tigers upset Florida in their last outing on Feb. 16 and have won four straight decisions overall.
The Tigers are banged up heading into Friday night’s meet, however, as top juniors Nicki Arnstad and Shanyn MacEachern are both questionable for the competition. Arnstad had minor knee surgery on Feb. 21 and is progressing nicely, while MacEachern is still recovering from a broken toe.
“We’re looking forward to out last SEC regular season meet,” said LSU head coach D-D Breaux. “We’re going in a little banged up but it’s going to be interesting to see how some of our younger athletes respond. We’re going to insert some younger people and hope we can scrape out a win.”
The series between the two SEC schools has been one dominated by LSU in recent years, as LSU owns a 31-5 regular season record against Auburn (2-6 overall, 1-3 in SEC action) and has won 16 straight overall decisions in the series dating back to a loss in 1993.
LSU came up with a scintillating performance against Auburn a year ago, scoring a season high 196.950-194.375 victory in Baton Rouge.
Auburn is coached by longtime LSU assistant Jeff Thompson, currently in his second year on the plains.
In Arnstad and MacEachern’s absence, junior co-captain Marina Degteva will possibly compete in her second all-around of the season and may take Arnstad’s place on beam. Degteva has been red hot over the past two meets 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. Friday she will likely get her first crack at the floor exercise and will try to fill Arnstad’s void in the event.
Junior Beth Boudreaux will need to continue to come up huge on Friday. The Dutchtown, La., native won the all-around against Florida in the Tigers’ last outing with a combined 39.425 and three scores of 9.90 or better.
Following the Auburn showdown, the Tigers return remain in Baton Rouge next weekend for their final home date of the season, as Michigan State and New Hampshire come to the Assembly Center on Friday night.