LINCOLN, Neb. — Entering its 21st NCAA Championships overall and eighth-straight appearance, the No. 4-seeded LSU gymnastics team will compete for a second berth in the Super Six Thursday at 1 p.m. CDT in Nebraska’s Bob Devaney Sports Center.
Live audio will be available free of charge in the Geaux Zone on LSUsports.net, and a link to live stats of the meet will also be available on LSUsports.net.
Last season marked LSU’s first appearance in the Super Six as the Tigers finished third out of six teams in the preliminary meet. The top three teams from the two preliminary meets Thursday will advance to the Super Six Friday at 6 p.m.
In order to qualify for the Super Six, LSU (21-5) will have to contend with two familiar foes ? No. 1 seed Georgia and No. 5 Florida ? that LSU faced during the regular season as well as the SEC Championships. The Tigers will also compete against No. 8 Oklahoma, No. 9 Stanford and No. 12 Penn State in the prelims.
“It’s been a very exciting season, and we have had a really consistent team effort from a small nucleus of student-athletes,” LSU head coach D-D Breaux said. “It has been a really good pleasure coaching this year, and we are not ready for this season to end. We want to come out in the prelims, display that consistency that got us here and go to the Super Six again.”
LSU enters the NCAA Championships with momentum after capturing a second-straight regional championship when the Tigers won the NCAA Central Regional at Ohio State April 4. At the regional LSU posted its third-highest season score with a 196.875, and the Tigers will look to carry the momentum into the Championships.
The Tigers have displayed consistent performances throughout the four event lineups, and that is a major reason why LSU was able to repeat as regional champions and enter the Championships as the No. 4 seed.
In the last three meets, junior Kayla Rogers has not scored less than a 9.825 as the lead-off gymnast on vault and floor, and sophomore Staci Schwitkis has posted four-straight 9.85 scores on bars to lead off for the Tigers. Freshman Gloria Johnson has been steady leading off on beam as she has tallied four 9.80 scores or higher in the event.
Sophomore Samantha Engle shined at the regional as she scored a 9.80 on bars and the team’s second-best score on beam with a 9.825.
Junior Sabrina Franceschelli recorded her second-highest all-around total of the season at the regional with a 39.200 as she scored two 9.80’s and a 9.85 to help lead the Tigers to victory.
Junior Summer Hubbard won her first bars title of the season at the regional with a season-best 9.925, and the St. Petersburg, Fla., native has been consistent all season, posting seven scores of 9.80 or higher on bars, seven 9.80’s on beam and six on floor.
Leading the Tigers as the anchors of the four lineups are junior Susan Jackson and senior Ashleigh Clare-Kearney. Jackson has steadily improved her performances in the last four meets as she has scored no lower than a 39.525 all-around mark, which is what she posted at the SEC Championships to take home second place in the all-around standings. Jackson earned her second-highest all-around score of the season at the regional with a 39.600, and it was her 9.925 at the end of the meet on beam that cemented LSU’s victory.
Clare-Kearney enters the NCAA Championships with a school-record 111 individual titles, and the Manchester, Conn., native will look to add to her career total in order to help the Tigers advance. At the regional Clare-Kearney scored a 9.95 on vault to take the title, and she also tallied a 9.90 on bars and floor.
Should LSU qualify for the Super Six the Tigers will compete Friday at 6 p.m., and the individual championships will begin Saturday at 6 p.m.
NCAA Women’s Gymnastics
Press Conference 2 ? April 15, 2009
LSU HEAD COACH D-D BREAUX
Opening Statement
“It’s certainly an honor to be in Lincoln, Nebraska. The championship they hosted a few years ago was wonderful, and it made everyone’s expectations that much higher. I appreciate all the hard work that it takes to host an event of this magnitude. Our season has pretty much been a reflection of what we experienced last year. We started really slow, by design. As we continued through the season, our scoring potential and our scores began to rise, and so did our placement in the rankings. It’s been very exciting this season. We have two all-arounders giving us a tremendous amount of team leadership and great scores throughout the season, Ashley Clare-Kearney and Susan Jackson, but we’ve had just a consistently strong team effort from a small nucleus of student-athletes, and it’s really been a pleasure coaching this year.”
On trying to win a national championship …
“It’s all about consistency and being able to do it when everything lines up exactly right. We certainly have powerful scoring potential throughout our lineup. The pressure on us is having everyone hit and build that momentum. There’s just so much parity and so many good teams out there that for everyone to focus on Georgia is really not fair. There are a lot of really good teams at this championship.”
On more schools winning the national championship being good for the sport …
“There’s a lot of tremendous scoring potential out there, and it’s the momentum, the self-confidence, and the kids just beginning to smell that blood and know that they can win it and get the job done. I’ve seen my team do it, but we’ve never done it at a national championship. I’ve seen Oregon State, Alabama, almost every team that is here, and there’s going to be a lot of good gymnastics teams on that floor (Thursday).”
On Georgia gymnast Courtney Kupets …
“She was absolutely stunning at the SEC Championships. She represented the U.S. and is certainly one of the best in the world. She’s proven that she is reigning queen in our sport. In the SEC Championships, there were two or three athletes vying for that position. She got the nod from the judges.”
SENIOR ASHLEIGH CLARE-KEARNEY
On LSU struggling in the SEC Championships …
“It was frustrating, because I definitely think that we’re capable of placing higher in our conference. The Southeastern Conference is a tough conference, but it’s also great experience to prepare for nationals. The past three or four years, we’ve finished in fourth place, so that’s frustrating. We have the talent. We have the confidence. We’re a very focused team and we have great camaraderie, so we definitely could’ve come out on top. But we’ve put that in the past and gone back into the gym and worked toward Regionals and getting to nationals. Hopefully, tomorrow we can show what we’re made of and what we’re capable of doing, because I don’t believe we’ve done that yet.”