BATON ROUGE — After posting a near season-best of 196.875 at Alabama last week, the LSU gymnastics team jumped two spots to No. 6 in the latest national rankings, released Monday.
LSU improved its regional qualifying score from a 195.830 to a 196.230 to secure the No. 6 ranking, its highest since March 28, 2005. The Tigers sit just fractions of point outside of the top five as UCLA edged them for the No. 5 position with a 196.280 RQS.
The top four remained unchanged from a week ago as Florida and Georgia are No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, with RQSs of 197.365 and 197.275. Stanford (196.530) and Alabama (196.280) follow in third and fourth.
LSU is ranked in the top 15 on each of the four individual events for the third straight week. The Tigers held on to their No. 2 ranking on the vault as well as their No. 7 ranking on the floor. They also slipped one spot to No. 9 on the bars and one position to No. 14 on the beam.
Following outstanding individual performances, LSU’s three all-arounders — Kelly Phelan, Nicki Butler and Ashleigh Clare-Kearney — all improved their positions in the national standings.
Phelan jumped to No. 5 in the all-around after improving her RQS to a 39.335. The ranking, the highest of her career, is the best for a LSU athlete since April Burkholder was listed at No. 3 on Feb. 27, 2006.
Phelan also improved to No. 11 on the floor, while dropping slightly to No. 9 on the vault.
Butler made the biggest leap in the all-around standings, improving from No. 17 last week to No. 12 this week (39.275) following a career-high 39.400 effort against the Tide. She also moved up one position to No. 6 on the vault.
Clare-Kearney continues her dominance on the vault, holding on to the nation’s No. 1 ranking for a third straight week after notching a meet-winning 9.950 against Alabama. She also moved up slightly in the all-around standings to No. 18 with a RQS of 39.180. In addition, she is listed in the floor rankings for the first time this season at No. 22
Others in the rankings include sophomore Lauren Klein and freshman Summer Hubbard.
Klein earned her first ever top-10 national ranking, climbing three spots to No. 8 on the floor, while Hubbard slipped slightly to No. 21 on the bars.
The Tigers return to action this Friday when they host No. 16 Penn State at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at 7 p.m.
National Rankings ? March 5, 2007
Team
RQS
1
Florida
197.365
2
Georgia
197.275
3
Stanford
196.530
4
Alabama
196.520
5
UCLA
196.280
6
LSU
196.230
7
Utah
196.220
8
Nebraska
196.190
9
Oklahoma
196.005
10
Oregon State
195.790
11
Arkansas
195.625
12
Michigan
195.620
13
Iowa State
195.610
14
Denver
195.540
15
Arizona
195.430
16
Auburn
195.370
17
Penn State
195.290
18
Missouri
194.985
19
Ohio State
194.955
20
Illinois-Champaign
194.470
21
Arizona State
194.380
22
North Carolina State
194.345
23
West Virginia
194.320
24
Michigan State
194.300
25
Kent State
194.255