BATON ROUGE — The 11th-ranked LSU gymnastics team will try to knock off its second top-ranked team this season on Friday night at 6:30 p.m., when the Tigers travel to Athens to take on No. 1 Georgia.
LSU enters on the wings of a school record score of 197.500 in a convincing victory over Kentucky last weekend, but needs a significant road score this weekend if they are to move up in the rankings. The Tigers have been impressive at home and have yet to score under 196.000, but will need a big road score this weekend to drop a pair of sub-par scores from the beginning of the season.
“This is a great challenge for us,” said head coach D-D Breaux, who came up with her 400th career win last weekend. “Georgia is a very tough place to come in and win so we know we’re going to have to be every bit as clean as we were last Friday night. This meet takes on additional emphasis for us because we know the level of competition will be extremely high which will hopefully lead to a big road score for us which we desperately need for ranking purposes.”
The GymDogs will be the Tigers’ eighth consecutive dual meet against a ranked opponent, as they have yet to face an unranked opponent.
The Tigers will be gunning for their fourth consecutive dual meet victory over a top-ranked team over the past three seasons. LSU defeated two No. 1 teams in 2000, besting Utah and Alabama in consecutive weeks, then once again defeated Utah when ranked No. 1 earlier this season.
Georgia has a decisive advantage in the all-time series between the two schools, owning a 33-10-2 lead in regular season meetings. The two teams saw each other earlier in the season at the Super Six Challenge when the GymDogs when the event while the Tigers finished fifth.
The GymDogs took a convincing 196.100-193.875 decision in Baton Rouge a year ago. The Last meeting in Athens, however, was a thriller as Georgia narrowly defeated the Tigers 196.375-196.225 in a meet televised nationally by ESPN. The Tigers will be looking for their first win over Georgia since 1995.
With Georgia averaging nearly 197.000, Breaux knows that her team will have to hit on all four events, something it has done in nearly all of its home meets, but has yet to do on the road this season.
Three weeks ago the Tigers had a chance to put Denver away on the road and reach the 196-point plateau for the first time on the season away from home. A fall on beam, however, cost the Tigers the meet and a convincing score.
The past two weeks, however, the Tigers have been near perfect on the event having posted scores of 49.375 and 49.325 respectively.
“The beam is the critical event,” said Breaux. “Whoever controls the beam controls the meet. Against Georgia we’ll finish up on beam so we’ll have to come out and hit three strong events to set the stage for another good showing on beam.”
The Tigers will be led by two-time SEC Gymnast of the Week Beth Boudreaux who enters on a hot streak after winning the bars title last weekend with a score of 9.975 and the beam titles with a score of 9.925. Boudreaux has five titles to her credit this year and 19 on her career.
Nicki Arnstad has progressed nicely in her return from a right mid-foot sprain and the All-American may see action on the floor for the first time since suffering her injury on Feb. 1. Arnstad has competed on vault, bars and beam over the past two weeks after missing the Alabama and Denver meets, but has not competed on floor since Jan. 25. She has won the event in each of her three appearances this season, including a perfect 10.0 at the Super Six Challenge on Jan. 11.
Following the Georgia meet, the Tigers return home for senior night as Rhode Island and Centenary come to town on Friday night at 7 p.m. The Tigers will look to improve to a perfect 7-0 at home and finish the regular season with a perfect record at the PMAC.