BATON ROUGE — The LSU gymnastics team will host 23rd-ranked Michigan State and New Hampshire this Friday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at 7 p.m. This will mark the Tigers’ final preparations for the SEC Championships.
LSU (7-2) is coming off its third SEC win of the season after a 195.675-194.450 victory at Auburn, bringing the Tigers’ win streak to five straight decisions since falling to Alabama on Feb. 2.
Michigan State (12-4) has won three of its last four outings with the only loss coming on Feb. 17, ironically, at the hands of New Hampshire (13-2).
Despite being unranked, the Wildcats’ only two losses have come against traditional powers Penn State and West Virginia.
The Tigers hold advantages over both clubs. LSU is 6-2 all-time in regular season match-ups with Michigan State and 10-0 in post-season play, capturing the last meeting 192.600-190.625 against the Spartans in the opening meet a year ago. LSU has faced New Hampshire just three times in the school’s history and holds a perfect 3-0 record against the Wildcats.
This will mark the first meeting between the two teams since 1996.
“We need a good score,” head coach D-D Breaux said. “It is important for us to score well and put together a consistent performance. We have been using different athletes in our line-ups, and they have really shown their maturity and their ability to respond to the task at hand.”
In addition, Friday night will be the last meet for seniors Tricia Corbello and Sharene Mamby. Corbello hails from Sulphur, Louisiana and specializes in bars. The walk-on registered a career-high mark of 9.650 on the bars a year ago against Michigan St. on Jan. 8.
Mamby was forced to sit out the entire 2000 season due to a ruptured Achille’s tendon. Upon her return she was selected by her teammates to serve as co-captain along with Marina Degteva and took no time capturing her first title since 1996 against Georgia with a 9.900 performance on bars. Just a week later, the Ontario, Canada native posted the first perfect 10 in any event since 1997 and just the second on the bars in school history.
The Tigers will take next week off to prepare for the SEC Championships in Birmingham on March 23. Last season LSU placed second at the SEC Championships with its highest score of 196.825 ever by an LSU team at the conference meet.