Tag Archives: LSU

Season Preview

LSU 2017

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Last night, LSU conducted its now-annual Gymnastics 101 (GET IT BECAUSE THIS IS A COLLEGE) to showcase the team’s best routines heading into the new season. It was…exactly what you would expect from a meet a month before the season begins. Sort of getting there. It did, however, provide a glorious opportunity for us to dig into the lineups and prospects for the upcoming season, so let’s go.

LSU ROSTER 2017
Seniors
Sydney
Ewing
  • Competed VT, BB, FX every meet in 2016
  • 2016 RQS: VT – 9.905, BB – 9.870, FX – 9.865
Ashleigh Gnat
  • Team’s top routine & anchor on VT, BB, FX
  • Can contribute UB as needed
  • 2016 RQS: FX – 9.980, VT – 9.965, BB – 9.895
  • 2016 average: UB – 9.727
Shae
Zamardi
  • Weekly UB routine each of last two seasons
  • Provides FX option
  • 2016 RQS: UB – 9.875
  • 2016 average: FX – 9.517
Juniors
Myia
Hambrick
  • Competed AA at nearly every meet in 2016, ranked 10th nationally
  • 2016 RQS: UB – 9.905, BB – 9.885, VT – 9.880, FX – 9.880
Lauren Li
  • Transfer from Penn State for sophomore year
  • Has not competed a routine for LSU
Erin
Macadaeg
  • Constant important work on BB
  • Can provide VT, FX as needed, competed once on FX in 2016 for 9.950
  • 2016 RQS: BB – 9.890
  • 2016 average: VT – 9.768, FX – 9.950
Kylie Moran
  •  Has not competed a routine for LSU
Sophomores
Julianna
Cannamela
  • Provided borderline lineup/backup routine on each event in 2016
  • Made final VT, BB lineups
  • 2016 RQS: VT – 9.835
  • 2016 average: UB – 9.663, BB – 9.603, FX – 9.050
Sarah Finnegan
  • Weekly UB, BB routines and frequent VT in 2016
  • Provides occasional option on FX
  • 2016 RQS: UB – 9.915, BB – 9.915, VT – 9.835
  • 2016 average: FX – 9.692
McKenna
Kelley
  • Near-weekly FX routines in 2016
  • 2016 RQS: FX – 9.885
  • DID YOU KNOW SHE’S MARY LOU RETTON’S DAUGHTER?????
Lexie
Priessman
  • Overcame Chronic Cincinnati Leg Death to make final UB lineup
  • Contributed a couple early seasion VT, BB routines
  • 2016 averages: UB – 9.869, VT – 9.750, BB – 9.725
Kaitlyn
Szafranski
  • Did not compete a routine in freshman year
Freshmen
Kennedi
Edney
  • Precision
  • 2016 JO Nationals 3rd AA
  • 2014-2015 JO National AA champion
Ruby Harrold
  • 2016 Olympian for GBR
  • 2013-2015 World Championship team member, UB finalist
Ashlyn Kirby
  • Shooting Stars NC
  • 2015 JO Nationals 10th AA

Recent History
2016 – 2nd
2015 – 10th
2014 – 3rd
2013 – 5th
2012 – 9th
2011 – 20th
2010 – 9th

They’re inching closer. The question for the LSU Tigers is not whether they can make Super Six in 2017. They can and better, otherwise they’ll have squandered a championship-level roster twice in three years. The question right now is whether LSU can improve on last season’s “Oh, so close” and actually take the title for the first time.

It’s a distinct possibility, one that will largely depend on just how good Oklahoma ends up being this year. Still, LSU has lost very few routines from last season, which provides an opportunity for improvement over last season’s 2nd-place side. If the Tigers can get just a little better on bars and a little more consistent on beam, there’s every reason to expect them to be able to challenge the Sooners. Continue reading LSU 2017 →

Season Preview

2017 Freshman Preview: LSU

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“Is this LSU’s year?” they say every year. Given the relative paucity of lost routines and a number of expected contributions from significant freshmen…if not now, then when?

Returning Routines – LSU
VAULT
Gnat – 9.965
Ewing – 9.905
Hambrick – 9.880
Finnegan – 9.835
Cannamela – 9.835
Macadaeg – 9.790
Priessman – 9.750		 BARS
Finnegan 9.915
Hambrick – 9.905
Zamardi – 9.875
Priessman – 9.869
Gnat – 9.727
Cannamela – 9.663
BEAM
Finnegan – 9.915
Gnat – 9.895
Macadaeg – 9.890
Hambrick – 9.885
Ewing – 9.870
Priessman – 9.725
Cannamela – 9.603		 FLOOR
Gnat – 9.980
Macadaeg – 9.950
Kelley – 9.885
Hambrick – 9.880
Ewing – 9.865
Finnegan – 9.692
Zamardi – 9.517
Cannamela – 9.050

That’s already a pretty solid batch of routines, with only bars showing some troublesome holes. Enter Ruby Harrold.

Stalwart of the quadrennium for the British, Harrold made teams because of her ability to deliver a believable TF routine on three different apparatuses, but the showpiece of her gymnastics has always been difficult and interesting bars composition.

zucholdschleudern

Girl, you Zuchold the crap out of that Schleudern.

Harrold’s biggest obstacle in getting huge, huge scores on bars was always that, because she went for major difficulty, her form became a sack of damn crazy in places. Let’s just address the Bhardwaj in the room before we go too far. A skill like that would destroy her NCAA score, but at the same time, I do think Harrold needs to retain a solid chunk of that unique elite composition to make this a true standout, end-of-lineup, 9.9-even-on-a-bad-day routine. If it’s just “shaposhjaegerbye,” I will sigh the world down.

All of which is to say, I know Jay Clark and I have our differences because of his fundamentally abominable worldview, but if the Zuchold-Schleudern doesn’t stay in Ruby’s routine, we really are done forever. Continue reading 2017 Freshman Preview: LSU →

Fun with Numbers

Returning Routine Rankings 2017

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Yes, that is a picture of D-D Breaux in a pink hardhat. Because there doesn’t need to be a reason.

Now that the NCAA schedules are finally coming together-ish, it’s probably important for us to start remembering who the people are and what the things do. It’s a really tough job. We need three months.

Before beginning to evaluate this year’s incoming freshmen, I decided to check out where the teams stand without them, how they rank using only scores from 2016’s returning gymnasts. It’s a totally scientific and unimpeachable way of quantifying just how much work the freshmen and new transfers will need to do for teams to return to (or improve on) last year’s level.

When available, I used RQS for each gymnast, but when not, I used full season average.

Most teams do return at least five people who competed on each apparatus last year, but when they don’t, I filled out the remaining scores with punishment 9.700s (I told you, totally scientific). It’s a way of making sure each team has a comparable total, operating under the belief that for these top 15 teams, the backup gymnast who wasn’t good enough to compete probably would have scored a replacement-level 9.700. That is, unless the returning scores were already lower than that (*cough* Utah’s beam *cough*).

1. LSU – 197.726
VAULT
Gnat – 9.965
Ewing – 9.905
Hambrick – 9.880
Finnegan – 9.835
Cannamela – 9.835
Macadaeg – 9.790
Priessman – 9.750
49.420		 BARS
Finnegan 9.915
Hambrick – 9.905
Zamardi – 9.875
Priessman – 9.869
Gnat – 9.727
Cannamela – 9.663
49.291
BEAM
Finnegan – 9.915
Gnat – 9.895
Macadaeg – 9.890
Hambrick – 9.885
Ewing – 9.870
Priessman – 9.725
Cannamela – 9.603
49.455		 FLOOR
Gnat – 9.980
Macadaeg – 9.950
Kelley – 9.885
Hambrick – 9.880
Ewing – 9.865
Finnegan – 9.692
Zamardi – 9.517
Cannamela – 9.050
49.560

Losing only Savona and a not-100% Wyrick from last year’s Super Six team, LSU is sailing smoothly on most events. Continue reading Returning Routine Rankings 2017 →

NCAA Rosters

Comings and Goings

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Oklahoma won the national title six whole days ago, which is like a thousand years ago. Sorry, Oklahoma. We’re moving on. What have you done for us lately? Basically nothing? That’s what I thought.

The 2017 season is just around the corner, as long as that corner is really, really far away. We don’t know anything real about 2017 yet, but we do know which valuable gems and enthusiastic leaders in the training gym we won’t see next year, along with which bright new lights full of possibilities and undiagnosed shin problems will be joining the teams in their place.

Detailed looks at each team and roster will come much later, when the season approaches and I actually vaguely know who these JO gymnasts are, but let’s call this a preliminary glance at who’s coming and who’s going on each team now that the 2016 season is closed and locked away forever and the traditional eight-month moratorium has been placed on the terms “parity,” “yurchenko arabian,” “confident leadoff,” and “life lessons.” I’ve placed the top teams into various categories based on the current outlook and added the RQSs for the routines they will lose after 2016.

This is, of course, assuming that people do what they’re supposed to and don’t suddenly turn pro or run off to join a traveling circus or whatever.

Smooth sailing

LSU
Out: Jessica Savona, Randii Wyrick, Michelle Gauthier
In: Ruby Harrold, Kennedi Edney, Ashlyn Kirby

Savona – VT – 9.820 avg; UB – 9.840; FX – 9.902 avg
Wyrick – UB – 9.810; FX – 9.905

The Tigers certainly lose a few critical routines, the most important being Savona’s floor, though they already gained some experience with life after Savona’s vault and floor when she was out early this season (and life after Wyrick’s bars when she didn’t compete in the postseason). They survived, for the most part. Several of these openings should be filled by people already on the roster, and while I don’t think we can have any expectations for Priessman at this point because any week she’s healthy enough to compete is just a bonus, Kelley should do more next year. Add to that this freshman class, and I think there’s every reason to expect LSU 2017 to be stronger than LSU 2016.

ALABAMA
Out: Lauren Beers, Carley Sims
In: Maddie Desch, Wynter Childers, Shea Mahoney

Beers – VT – 9.905; UB – 9.690; FX – 9.915
Sims – FX – 9.868

Alabama is in a similar position to LSU in terms of not losing that many routines, though Alabama’s losses carry a bit more significance, especially on floor with the team’s two strongest floories departing. They’ll need some of the upperclassmen like Brannan to step up and be a little more Beersy on those events and a little less middle-of-the-lineupy, but with increased contribution from a potential star like Ari Guerra who didn’t figure at all by the end of the season and the introduction of Maddie Desch and Wynter Childers, Alabama’s first-ever recruit who’s also a citizen of District 1, I’m not too worried about the look of Alabama’s future roster.
Continue reading Comings and Goings →