Gymnastics Earns No. 2 Seed at SEC Championships

BATON ROUGE – Following a season-high score of 198.125 against Utah on Friday night, the LSU gymnastics team leapfrogged Auburn and Alabama to No. 5 in the rankings and secure the two seed at the 2022 Southeastern Conference Championships, the league office announced Monday.

The squad will go after the program’s fourth SEC Championship in five tries at 7 p.m. CT Saturday inside Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama. The Tigers will compete alongside top seeded Florida, third seeded Auburn and fourth seeded Alabama in the night session.

The meet will be televised on SEC Network with Bart Conner, Kathy Johnson Clarke and Samantha Peszek on the call. WatchESPN.com and the app will also have individual coverage of each event.

The Tigers own an NQS of 197.735, which is the average of a team’s top six scores, three of which must be away and the highest score dropped. LSU’s six scores are 197.825, 197.625 and 197.325 away from the PMAC and 198.125, 198.05 and 197.975 other scores. LSU will drop the 198.125 score.

LSU will start the meet on bars and move to beam and floor before finishing on vault. LSU owns top-10 rankings on all four events. The Tigers are third on vault, sixth on beam, seventh on floor and eighth on beam.

One of the most consistent teams in the SEC, LSU won its first of three-straight SEC titles in 2017. The Tigers won the inaugural meet championship in 1981. LSU also won titles in 2018 in St. Louis and 2019 in New Orleans.

Twenty-five LSU gymnasts have combined to win 47 SEC titles since 1981. A total of 97All-SEC honors have been earned over the years and 17 SEC All-Freshman team honors have been awarded since 2009.

Haleigh Bryant and Elena Arenas are the defending SEC vault champions. Kiya Johnson is the defending SEC floor exercise champion after scoring a perfect 10 on the event.

Fans can follow the Tigers on the team’s social media channels: @LSUgym on Instagram and Twitter and www.Facebook.com/lsugym.