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LSU GYMNASTICS BEGINS FALL PRACTICE FOR 2012 SEASON
BATON ROUGE – The LSU
gymnastics team officially opened preparations for the 2012 season with
its first full practice of the fall semester Tuesday inside the
gymnastics practice area in the Carl Maddox Field House.
The
team wasted no time jumping into an intense workout on the first day
after working out eight hours a week for the last several weeks with
Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coordinator Earl Chevalier.
“We
hit the ground running today as we already started working on
routines,” LSU head coach D-D Breaux said. “We feel we are a much
stronger and deeper team, and the level of fitness and enthusiasm along
with our goals and aspirations is high.
“Right now each
practice is a series of preparations with small targets, working toward
our first intrasquad and then moving into our second and third
intrasquads right before final exams in December.”
The team split into small groups and rotated through bars, beam and floor during practice.
The
gymnasts worked on the majority of their floor routines, but each
gymnast only performed the final tumbling pass in the routine. Several
routines are still in the process of being developed by volunteer
assistant coach Ashleigh Clare-Kearney, the two-time NCAA national
champion and former gymnast at LSU who enters her second season as a
coach with the Tigers.
“Having Ashleigh last year and
again this year lends continuity to what we are doing,” Breaux said.
“She has been working with the kids to get the choreography down and
finish the routine constructions, and it’s coming along nicely.”
The Tigers also worked extensively on beam and bars with emphasis placed on the skills performed throughout the routine.
“They
didn’t have to hit each time on beam, but they had to go through all
their skills and work their routine six times,” Breaux said. “On bars
we did internal sets to improve handstands and skills, so only a few
kids worked on dismounts and combinations into their dismount.”
Shelby
Prunty, Ericka Garcia and Mckenzie Fox are recovering from injuries
suffered during the 2011 season, but Breaux said all are improving and
on schedule for the season.
“Shelby is limited on what she
can do on bars after wrist surgery early in the summer, but her beam
and floor are beautiful right now. Ericka is improving after her ACL
tear, and she is working on internal sets on bars. You can’t even tell
‘Mac’ (Mckenzie) has been injured. She is full go on bars, but we are
not letting her do a dismount yet,” Breaux said.
LSU
returns nine letterwinners from last season’s team that competed at the
NCAA Athens Regional, including 2009 All-America Ashley Lee and 2011
All-America Kaleigh Dickson as well as All-SEC sophomore Sarie Morrison.
The Tigers will continue practice Wednesday as they work toward the first intrasquad meet Oct. 14 in the practice gym.
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