BATON ROUGE — After scoring a 196.500 against seventh-ranked Florida Friday night the LSU gymnastics team improved to No. 10 in the latest national rankings, released Monday. The Tigers moved up two spots from the No. 12 position they held a week ago.
UCLA regained the nation’s No. 1 position with its season average score of 197.109, while Utah jumped up two spots into the No. 2 position (196.985) and Alabama, who was No. 1 last week, dropped two spots to third (196.917).
Georgia (196.900) and Nebraska (196.757) round out the top five.
The Tigers are also ranked in the top-15 on each of the four individual events. LSU’s highest placing, 10th, comes on the uneven bars where it owns a season average score of 48.885. The Tigers are also ranked 12th on both the floor (49.095) and beam (48.685) and 14th on the vault (48.900).
Individually, LSU has three athletes listed among the nation’s top-25.
Freshman April Burkholder owns LSU’s highest individual ranking, as she sits in the No. 18 spot on the floor exercise with a season average score of 9.895. Sophomore Katharine Hilton and junior Lindsay Beddow are each ranked on the uneven bars. Hilton’s 9.862 average places her 20th in the nation on the event, while Beddow’s mark of 9.855 ranks her 23rd.
The LSU gymnastics team returns to action Friday when it travels to Tuscaloosa for a dual meet with No. 3 Alabama.