BATON ROUGE – For the fifth time this season, junior Sarah Finnegan has been named the Southeastern Conference Gymnast of the Week, the league office announced Tuesday.
Finnegan led LSU to its regular season finale win with a pair of perfect 10.0 scores and a 39.700 all-around score. With her two perfect scores against Arizona and 10.0 on floor against Auburn, Finnegan joined April Burkholder as the only gymnasts in school history to earn perfect scores on three different events. Finnegan is the only gymnast in the league to score a 10.0 on three different events and one of two in the nation.
PERFECTION IN THE PMAC!!!! Watch the 10 from @sfinnegan37!https://t.co/q2vBFd0Sgw pic.twitter.com/zJVHwBfXsP
— LSU Gymnastics (@LSUgym) March 17, 2018
As the anchor of LSU’s bars and beam lineups, Finnegan helped push LSU’s total to a 49.750 on bars and 49.725 on beam. The bars mark set a new school record and is the second-highest on the event since 1998. The beam score tied the school record. LSU became the first team since 1998 to go 49.700 or higher on bars and beam.
DOESN’T GET MUCH BETTER THAN PERFECTION!!! It’s ANOTHER TEN for @sfinnegan37. https://t.co/q2vBFd0Sgw pic.twitter.com/TZlWWu4DNg
— LSU Gymnastics (@LSUgym) March 17, 2018
Finnegan took home her 16th bars and beam titles respectively for her career. Finnegan sits second in school history for beam titles and moved to fourth for bars titles. Her 43 total titles now rank 11th in school history. Finnegan won her fifth all-around title this season and the seventh of her career with a 39.700. She became the fifth gymnast in school history to earn a 39.700 or higher in the all-around twice in one season.
LSU gymnasts have combined to earn 13 SEC weekly honors in 2018 with the top award going to a Tiger in nine of 11 weeks. Finnegan has been named the gymnast of the week five times, senior Myia Hambrick has also earned the top honor in the conference three times, and Kennedi Edney earned it once. Sami Durante and Christina Desiderio have each been named the freshman of the week. Lexie Priessman and Erin Macadaeg were also named the specialist of the week.
The second-ranked Tigers travel to St. Louis, Missouri, to compete at the SEC Championship at 6 p.m. CT March 24. LSU earned the top seed for the meet with the highest RQS of any team in the league and will compete in the order of a home meet (vault, bars, beam, floor). The meet will be televised live on ESPN2.
Fans can follow the Tigers on the team’s social media channels: @LSUgym on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, www.Facebook.com/lsugym and at YouTube.com/lsugymnastics.