IOWA CITY, Iowa – The ninth-ranked LSU gymnastics squad travels to Iowa for the final regular season road dual meet at 7 p.m. CT Friday in Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Live audio will be available free of charge in the Geaux Zone at www.LSUsports.net/live.
LSU (5-8) enters the meet on the strength of a 196.550-194.875 victory against No. 21 North Carolina State, while Iowa (6-7-1) is coming off a season-high 195.875 in a quad meet victory last week at Texas Woman’s.
The Tigers, who have climbed five spots to No. 9 in the rankings in the last month, will look to continue their streak of solid performances. LSU has posted no lower than a 196.450 team score in the last four meets, two of which were road bouts against Florida and Washington.
“We’ve had our best performances in the last few weeks, and we’ve had some all-arounders who have continued to be honored at the conference level,” head coach D-D Breaux said. “We just have to make sure everybody understands the most important part of our season is the postseason, and we have to do everything we can to put ourselves in a position to be successful at that point.”
Several Tigers have posted season highs recently, including current SEC Freshman of the Week Lloimincia Hall who tied the nation’s top floor score with a 9.975 against NC State on March 2. Sarie Morrison and Rheagan Courville both earned a 9.90 on bars to guide the Tigers to a season-high 49.225 in the event last week, and Maliah Mathis tallied a season-best 9.90 on floor.
Randi Lau, Jessie Jordan and Hall all posted a 9.85 on beam last week, and Kaleigh Dickson finished second on the team with a 9.80 vault against the Wolfpack.
“We know that even when we hit our high score there is still room for improvement,” Breaux said. “This team is getting better every day because they have stayed in the process with a focused and committed effort in and out of the gym.”
Iowa is led by senior Jessa Hansen who scored a 39.225 to win the all-around at the TWU Quad Meet last week as well as sophomore Tesla Cox who won the bars title with a career-high 9.90.
LSU is 9-2 all-time against the Hawkeyes, including a 2-0 record inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena, but the Tigers fell to Iowa in the season opener at the Cancun Classic. LSU placed fifth in the meet while Iowa was fourth. The last time the two teams squared off in Iowa City was Jan. 9, 2009 when LSU beat Iowa 194.175-191.375.
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