BATON ROUGE — The 10th-ranked LSU gymnastics team will begin the 2008 season with a bit of international flair as it travels to Cancun, Mexico, on Friday for Cancun Classic at the Hilton Golf and Beach Resort.
The meet will be just the third in program history for the Tigers outside of the United States, and the first in Mexico, as they opened both the 1996 and 2003 seasons in Nassau, Bahamas.
“This meet provides us with a great opportunity to begin the season in a more relaxed atmosphere then we have faced in recent years,” said LSU head coach D-D Breaux who has seen her team open at the competitive Super Six Challenge the last two seasons, a meet that annually features six of the nation’s top 25 teams.
“We are a young team that has a lot learn about what it takes to compete at the highest level in collegiate gymnastics and I think this will be a good first step,” said Breaux. “I always say that the season is a process and this is the start of the process.”
The Tigers will test the waters among a field of three other teams that includes No. 15 Denver, Minnesota and Texas Woman’s.
Denver returns 10 letterwinners off a squad that posted a 14-6 record and finished 10th at the NCAA Championships a year ago. The Tigers defeated the Pioneers twice last season, first at the season-opening Super Six Challenge and then again at the NCAA meet, and hold a 6-2-0 lead in the all-time series.
Minnesota was 10-15 last year and advanced to the NCAA Regional Championships. This will serve as the first meeting for LSU and Minnesota since the 1998 season. The Tigers are a perfect 12-0-0 against the Gophers all-time.
LSU also owns a perfect record against Texas Woman’s with a 9-0-0 mark. The two teams have not met since the 2006 season when the Tigers defeated the Pioneers in Denton, Texas. TWU finished fourth at the USAG National Championships last year.
For a victory Friday, Breaux will lean heavily on her core of four decorated veterans ? senior Kristi Esposito, juniors Ashleigh Clare-Kearney and Lauren Klein and sophomore Susan Jackson ? the quartet dot a 14-member roster that boasts five freshmen and five sophomores.
Esposito is the most decorated Tiger on the 2008 roster with four All-America honors to her credit. Clare-Kearney was a first-team All-SEC selection that won six all-around titles and 26 individual event crowns a year ago. Klein earned second-team all-conference honors in 2007, while Jackson was an All-America honoree.
While veterans will take up the majority of the lineup spots in Cancun, three freshmen may make their collegiate debuts. Staci Schwitkis (San Diego, Calif.) and Nicole Lyons (Mountaintop, Pa.) could each see action on the vault and bars, while Samantha Engle (Plano, Texas) could crack both the beam and floor lineups.
Action from the Hilton Golf and Beach Resort will begin at 3 p.m. Members of the GeauxZone can listen to the meet live online at www.LSUsports.net.
Following the Cancun Classic, the Tigers return to Baton Rouge where they will open the 2008 home slate against Iowa on Friday, Jan. 11, at 7 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.