BATON ROUGE — After two weeks on the road the No. 2-ranked LSU gymnastics team returns to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center Friday when it hosts Illinois-Chicago, New Hampshire and Western Michigan in a quad meet at 7 p.m.
“We are using this meet as a preparation for the SEC Championships,” said LSU head coach D-D Breaux. “With the four-team format it will be very similar to what we will face at conference meet and regionals and nationals later this year.”
The is will be the second quad meet of the year for the Tigers as they opened the season with a four-team meet at Michigan State, where they finished third overall.
Since then, LSU (8-3, 5-1 SEC) has won seven of their last eight meets, knocking off seven top 25 programs in the process.
The Tigers will look to veteran All-Americans April Burkholder and Annie Gagnon in their quest for an eighth consecutive victory. Burkholder, who sat out last week’s meet at Auburn with a concussion, is expected to be back in the all-around Friday. She is currently ranked among the top 25 nationally on the vault, bars, floor and in the all-around.
Gagnon owns top 25 rankings on the bars and beam. She is expected to see action in both those events as well as the vault.
Illinois-Chicago enters the meet with an even 6-6 record. The Flames are currently riding a three-meet win streak that includes victories over Illinois State, Rhode Island and Western Michigan. LSU is 9-1 all-time against UIC, a mark that includes a perfect 4-0 record in Baton Rouge.
New Hampshire is 11-7 on the season and enters the weekend ranked 21st nationally on the vault. LSU leads the all-time series with the Wildcats 6-0.
Western Michigan is 5-9 in 2005 and has lost its last three straight meets. The Broncos are averaging a 191.850 this year and have posted a season-best of 194.100. This will be just the third ever meeting between the Tigers and the Broncos. LSU leads the all-times series 2-0.
Following the quad meet, LSU hits the road for two meets in three days when it travels to Norman, Okla., and Denton, Texas, for dual meets with No. 10 Oklahoma on March 11 and Texas Woman’s on March 13.