Florida Gators

BATON ROUGE, La. --- The No. 10 University of Florida gymnastics team matched its highest team score of the season to defeat No. 11 Louisiana State 195.475-195.00 Friday night in front of a Pete Maravich Assembly Center crowd of 4,003. The win ups Florida's season record to 5-2, while the Tigers drop to 3-3-1. Gator senior Chrissy Vogel also collected her second all-around title of the season with a collegiate-best total of 39.500.
 
"This was a big win and an important win for us and I'm really proud of how we did it," UF Head Coach Judi Markell said. "For me, this was the most important meet of the season so far because we had so much to prove. The two teams were so close in the national standings and we needed to prove our standings in the SEC. We needed to get another score above 195 and we finally showed what we are capable of on the bars.
 
"We knew this was a really important meet and the team really fought hard for the win," she continued.
 
The Gators opened the meet with their highest team bars score of the season, 49.125. Florida was led on the event by junior All-American Sybil Stephenson, who shared the meet's title on the event with LSU's Syreeta Barnett with a season-best score of 9.90. UF freshman Chrissy Van Fleet was among a three-way tie for third with a collegiate-best score of 9.875.
 
Vogel won the evening's vault competition with a mark of 9.90. Junior Erika Selga shared second with LSU's Amy McClosky at 9.80. Overall, the Gators turned in a solid performance on the vault, posting a team score of 48.925 -- their second-highest vault performance of the year.
 
Vogel collected her second event title of the evening on the Gators' next event, the floor exercise. She shared the evening's high floor mark of 9.90 with LSU's Kellye Smith. As a team, Florida posted its second-best team floor total of the season with a 49.00.
 
On the Gators' final event, the balance beam, the Gators were forced to count a fall in its team total, but the lead UF owned heading into the final rotation held up to give UF the win. Florida was led on the event by Vogel, who earned a mark of 9.875, which tied her for second overall. The event title was claimed by LSU's McClosky, who posted a mark of 9.925.
 
Florida will have a week off to prepare for the Magical Classic, set for Feb. 21 in Orlando.