BATON ROUGE — The championship season begins Saturday for the fourth-ranked LSU gymnastics team when it travels to North Little Rock, Ark., for the SEC Championships at Alltel Arena.
The meet should be one of the best in the nation as all seven teams enter the competition ranked among the nation’s top 30, including Florida, Georgia, Alabama and LSU, who are listed at No. 1 through No. 4, respectively.
“When you have the four top-seeded teams in the conference that are also the four top-seeded teams in the country you know it is going to take championship level performances to win at this meet,” said LSU head coach D-D Breaux.
The Tigers’ biggest challenges will come from Florida, Georgia and Alabama, all teams that LSU suffered narrow losses to during the regular season conference schedule.
Florida has been ranked No. 1 in the country for all but one week this season and is averaging a NCAA-best 197.242 this year. The Gym Dogs, the two-time defending SEC and NCAA champions, are just behind them with a 197.130 average and an impressive 11-1-1 record. Alabama is 8-2 on the season and coming off a string of three straight 197.000-plus performances.
LSU (10-6, 3-3 SEC) has hit its stride in its last five meets, posting scores of 196.800 or better in each outing, including three scores above the 197.000 mark.
With the competition likely to be as tight as it appears on paper, Breaux knows that it will be a few things that will make the eventual champion stand out.
“We feel like going into the competition the team that controls their landings, hits their handstands on bars and rocks the house on balance beam will be the team to beat,” said Breaux.
Breaux believes the beam, an event the Tigers have suffered with inconsistency this season, will be their key to a successful competition.
“In order for us to compete at the SEC Championships and really feel like we can win and be No. 1 we have got to be able to control balance beam,” said Breaux.
The Tigers have gone above that 49.000 or better on the beam five times this season and will aim to do it a sixth time on Saturday.
Leading the way for the Tigers in that effort will be a trio of all-arounders that have established themselves as three of the best in the country this season.
The nation’s top-ranked gymnast, junior Ashleigh Clare-Kearney, paces the group. She has won a team-leading six all-around and 26 individual event titles this season and is also the country’s No. 1 performer on the vault.
Seniors Kelly Phelan and Nicki Butler have also proved they are elite level competitors, earning No. 16 and No. 20 national all-around rankings, respectively.
Phelan has won two all-around titles this season and has earned national rankings on the vault and floor.
Butler is also ranked nationally on the vault and she developed impressive consistency in the all-around, scoring 39.125 or better in eight of her last nine outings.
The trio will lead the Tiger squad as it begins competition on the bars on Saturday evening.
Following the bars, the Tigers will move right to the beam, then sit out the third rotation with a bye. The fourth rotation will find the Tigers on the floor, followed by a bye before they wrap up competition on the vault.
Action from Alltel Arena will begin at 6 p.m.
A live audiocast of the meet will be available online at www.LSUsports.net to members of the GeauxZone.