#5 LSU Preview

Roster
Cannamela, Julianna - Freshman
Ewing, Sydney - Junior - VT, BB, FX
Finnegan, Sarah - Freshman
Gauthier, Michelle - Senior - backup BB, FX
Gnat, Ashleigh - Junior - VT, UB, BB, FX
Hambrick, Myia - Sophomore - VT, UB, BB, FX
Kelley, McKenna - Freshman
Li, Lauren - Sophomore - backup VT, UB, FX
Macadaeg, Erin - Sophomore - VT, BB
Moran, Kylie - Sophomore - N/A
Priessman, Lexie Lee - Freshman
Savona, Jessica - Senior - VT, UB, BB, FX
Szafranski, Kaitlyn - Freshman
Wyrick, Randii - Senior - UB (backup VT, FX)
Zamardi, Shae - Junior - UB (backup FX)

Recent History
2015 - 10th
2014 - 3rd
2013 - 5th
2012 - 9th
2011 - 20th
2010 - 9th

2016 Outlook
LSU enters 2016 wallowing in the aftermath of an extremely disappointing collapse at nationals last year (THE FRESHMAN LOST HER MIND) and, much more significantly, the departure of the class that lifted this program back into the big time. So, some trepidation about this season is understandable. It seemed that LSU would be relying on a super-talented, but often MIA and legs-made-of-dust, freshman class to have a shot at repeating the top-three quality of the last couple years. Very dangerous territory. Thankfully, the complete and solid-for-December lineups LSU put up in the preseason showcase (without Priessman and Kelley) were very reassuring as to the status and competitive ability of the returning core of this team. LSU is a Super Six team even if the big-name freshmen aren't able to deliver significant numbers, and will challenge for the title if they are.

Key Competitor
I'm going with Ashleigh Gnat. Gnat spent the first two years of her LSU career hanging out around the 4th spot on her main events, a prominent contributor on whom the team relied for scores but not necessarily the lineup leader or an absolutely essential score. When she had the occasional bad one, Courville and Jordan (or Hall on floor) were there to pick up the slack and save a great rotation total. Without them, Gnat will be expected to anchor multiple lineups and get 9.9s on vault, beam, and floor every single time, which is a new role and a new level of responsibility. In the absence of Courville, she has to become a Courville to keep LSU on track. 

Vault 


Under ideal health circumstances, LSU's vault lineup will be Gnat, Priessman, Savona, Ewing, Kelley, and Hambrick. That's a serious 49.4+ group even without the benefit of Courville's mile-long vault (the start-value change also mitigates LSU's vault losses since Courville and Jordan wouldn't have scored as well this year anyway). Gnat continues to vault the DTY, which is developing into a US-elite level DTY that would provoke a tropical storm of Amanar rumors were she elite and competing it at Classic. She'll be the head vaulter for the Tigers, and let's hope the new values adequately reward her difficulty now instead of giving her a 9.875 every time and placing her on par with average yurchenko fulls.

When Priessman is able (she's expected to return on at least bars by mid-January), she's more than capable of producing a 10.0 SV since her Amanar remained only somewhat terrifying all the way through 2012, after which she was completing DTYs quite easily. Complementing those two will be Savona and Ewing, who both made their way into the vault lineup last season with sufficiently powerful 1.5s that will be even more valuable this year. With what should be four 10.0 starts and two other strong fulls, this lineup boasts both the difficulty and the execution to be a top-four vaulting team. At least. For the remaining fulls, I'd go with Kelley for her power and Hambrick for her incredible perfect perfection made of perfect. Her vault is a total joy and one of the few that qualifies as artistic. She can still hit 9.900 with a full this year.

When any of these six aren't available, both Cannamela and Macadaeg have perfectly acceptable fulls (Macadaeg has nice pop but isn't as steady on the landing) that should be able to score into the 9.8 range themselves and keep everything on track.

Bars


Bars is the worry event. While the Tigers have more than enough 9.800-level gymnasts to put together a workable lineup, they've been bleeding bars leaders for the last couple seasons in Morrison and now Courville and Jordan, leaving the team with mostly supporting characters and few stars. Conclusion: Sarah Finnegan. Finnegan has the toes, handstands, and general "she's Sarah Finnegan" to become one of the strongest bars workers around, especially now that she can get rid of a few of those pesky elite skills that gave Elfi a case of the post-diarrhea moans at 2012 Trials. Finnegan will need to become the new 9.9er. Priessman must also contribute, though her bars execution score in elite was not always so much with the great. Still, paring down to NCAA skills should give her something cleaner that can be a definite mid-lineup routine if not necessarily a starring routine the way Finnegan's should be. On twitter, Yosemite Clark took a short break from being the whole problem to post a video of her routine, which was fine if a little whippy in the DLO and a little leg-breaky in the pak.