BATON ROUGE — LSU gymnastics coach D-D Breaux met with the media Tuesday to talk about the team’s upcoming competition in the NCAA Central Regional in Columbus, Ohio. The fifth-ranked Tigers will be the No. 1 seed in the regional that will begin at 5 p.m. CDT Saturday in Ohio State’s St. John Arena.
Live audio of the meet will be available free of charge in the Geaux Zone of www.LSUsports.net.
Eighth-ranked Oregon State will be the No. 2 seed in the regional, while 17th-ranked and host Ohio State will be the No. 3 seed. No. 22 Kent State is the No. 4 seed, 24th-ranked and SEC rival Kentucky is the fifth seed and Michigan State is the sixth seed.
Opening Statement
“We are looking forward to competing against some teams we have not seen yet this year ? Michigan State for one and Oregon State which is ranked eighth going into this competition. Ohio State beat Auburn in Auburn’s last home meet, so they are a much better team than their ranking indicates. We are looking forward to this competition. Our team has not taken much time off. We took one day off after the SEC Championships in preparation for this event. We have to finish in the top two in this event, but being a regional champion going into the national championship does give you a little bit more prestige and a better opportunity to have a better seed when you go into the national championships. We are, of course, not looking past the regionals. We have to go through the regionals to get to nationals, and every day our preparation right now is focused on consistency ? sticking our landings, hitting our handstands and doing those things that we feel like we have made small progress in every outing this year.
“Right now we are about as healthy as we are going to get for the season. Ashleigh Clare-Kearney is in pretty good shape. She had a sprained ankle the last two meets of the season, and she is progressing well from that. Susan Jackson is looking really good going into this meet. Sabrina Franceschelli, another all-arounder, has really come along for us. We are going to use as many all-arounders as we possibly can going into this meet. Summer Hubbard will do the usual three events, not vaulting for us. Kayla Rogers has been a real bonus for us. She has led off in vaulting and floor exercise all season along, and of course that won’t change for this meet. We are pretty excited about going back to the regionals, and hopefully we will be able to defend our regional title away from home.”
On how the challenge is facing tough teams in the regional …
“The biggest challenge is getting out of the SEC’s. When you finish fourth at the SEC Championships and you are ranked fifth in the nation that pretty much tells you how tough our conference is. When you compete at this level and this league, you have to be at your fittest and you have to be as focused as you can possibly be every time you take the floor. Although this meet is going to be a tough one, it can’t nearly match up to what the SEC Championship was like.”
On what Susan Jackson brings to the team …
“Susan has a national championship to her name. Susan has been a tremendous mainstay in every event. To go to the SEC Championships this year and win the balance beam title just tells you what a rock she is. She is a solid competitor, and she does a tremendous amount of difficulty. To do the amount of difficulty she does and also be consistent is quite a feat in gymnastics.”
On Ashleigh Clare-Kearney‘s desire to compete despite being injured recently …
“She is a tenacious competitor. She really has a tremendous amount of love for LSU and for the team and what she does. She always puts the team ahead of what she would like to do and what her goals are. It is important that somebody says what her goals are so that they really are in the forefront of her thought process. I think she would like to finish her career at LSU with that one stone in her crown because she has pretty much done everything else.”