BATON ROUGE — The 12th-ranked LSU gymnastics welcomes No. 7 Florida to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center for a classic SEC match-up Friday at 7 p.m. The meet will be televised by ESPN on a tape delay basis, with the broadcast date scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 2 p.m. (CST).
The Tigers, 6-1 overall and 1-1 in SEC action, are coming off their best performance of the season as they upset then-No. 8 Denver 196.625-193.750 last Friday in their home opener. Tiger athletes claimed first-place finishes on each of the four events en route to posting season-high team totals on each event as well.
Individually, freshman April Burkholder continued her winning ways taking home individual titles on the vault and floor exercise with career-high marks of 9.925 and 9.950, respectively. In just the first meet of her collegiate career, sophomore Katharine Hilton won the uneven bars, scoring an impressive 9.925, while fellow sophomore Lauren Companioni recorded a first-place finish on the beam with her solid mark of 9.825.
Florida enters the meet with a 10-2 overall record and a perfect 2-0 slate in conference action. The Gators are coming off one of their best meets as they posted their third highest score in school history (196.950) to defeat No. 10 Washington, Rhode Island and George Washington a week ago.
Florida is ranked No. 1 in the nation on bars and sits among the top-15 on the other three events.
Following the Tigers meeting with the Gators, LSU hits the road, traveling to Tuscaloosa to face defending national champion and top-ranked Alabama, Feb. 14.