BATON ROUGE — After wrapping up the regular season SEC schedule last week, the LSU gymnastics team returns to competition this Friday when it hosts Penn State in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at 7 p.m.
“We are excited to be back home,” said LSU head coach D-D Breaux. “The team has worked hard and has really climbed in the rankings. We have preached to them all season long about staying in the process and I really feel like the last few weeks have demonstrated that we are doing that.”
The Tigers, who jumped to No. 6 in the national rankings this week, did so behind a pair of 196.875-plus performances against No. 1 Florida and No. 4 Alabama in the last two weeks. Breaux is hoping to build off that momentum as they prepare for postseason competition.
“We are excited about where we are, but we are not complacent all,” said Breaux. “We watch the video and we see where we need to make improvements. What’s most important right now is that we have precision filled performances that can help move us up in the rankings even further.”
LSU will have the opportunity to do that against a quality Penn State team that enters the meet with a No. 17 national ranking.
“Penn State is a very good opponent,” said Breaux.
The Nittany Lions, who are 13-3 this season, are currently riding a seven-meet win streak, a string of victories that includes wins over nationally-ranked opponents Michigan, Ohio State and North Carolina State.
The all-time series between the two teams lies with Penn State at 17-13. However, LSU owns a convincing 6-2 advantage in Baton Rouge.
This will be the second meeting of the season for the Tigers and Nittany Lions as they first went head-to-head at the season-opening Super Six Challenge. Penn State outscored LSU, 194.575-194.075, in that meeting.
Since then the Tigers have improved their scores dramatically and have accumulated a 196.230 regional qualifying score, a mark that is nearly one full point better than Penn State’s 195.290.
Following Friday’s competition, LSU will close out its regular season home schedule on Friday, March 16 against No. 8 Nebraska.