BATON ROUGE — After posting a season-high 196.500 in its win over Arkansas last week, the LSU gymnastics team moved up two spots into a two-way tie with the Gym’Backs at No. 13 in the latest national rankings, released Monday.
Florida maintained its hold on the country’s No. 1 position for a third straight week with a 196.869 season average. Georgia sits just behind the Gators with a 196.970 average, while Utah (196.308), Alabama (196.275) and Stanford (196.194) round out the top five.
Nebraska (195.908), UCLA (196.671), Oklahoma (195.408), Michigan (195.250) and Auburn (195.225) complete the top 10. LSU and Arkansas are just behind with identical 194.825 averages.
LSU is also ranked on three of the four individual events for a second straight week.
After two weeks as the nation’s top-ranked vault squad, the Tigers have slipped one position to No. 2 on the event with a 49.260 season average.
LSU did move up one spot to No. 10 on the bars (48.825), in addition to jumping seven positions to No. 18 on the floor (48.619).
Individually, the Tigers still have an NCAA-best four athletes listed among the top-25 vault rankings.
Junior Ashleigh Clare-Kearney held onto her No. 2 position for a third straight week with a near-perfect 9.925 season average. Senior Nicki Butler is listed at No. 15 with a 9.862 average. Fellow senior Kelly Phelan and junior Emily Ellis are just behind Butler in 17th and 18th, respectively, with season averages of 9.856 and 9.850.
LSU returns to action this Friday when they host No. 2 Georgia in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at 7 p.m.
National Gymnastics Rankings ? Jan. 29, 2007
Rank Team Name Team Ave
1 Florida 196.869
2 Georgia 196.790
3 Utah 196.308
4 Alabama 196.275
5 Stanford 196.194
6 Nebraska 195.908
7 UCLA 195.671
8 Oklahoma 195.408
9 Michigan 195.250
10 Auburn 195.225
11 Iowa State 195.150
12 Denver 194.869
t13 LSU 194.825
t13 Arkansas 194.825
15 Arizona 194.792
16 Oregon State 194.600
17 Arizona State 194.175
18 Kent State 193.925
19 Ohio State 193.908
20 Missouri 193.869
21 Michigan State 193.833
22 BYU 193.781
23 Penn State 193.731
24 Kentucky 193.717
25 West Virginia 193.608