LSU put up the billboards before the plane even touched down in Baton Rouge: DOMIN8TION. The program might be dominant, winning it second consecutive SEC title, but the meet was anything but. This was a gutty win in which the Tigers had to scratch and claw for every point.
You knew the meet was going to be a dogfight from the beginning. LSU scored a 49.400 on the vault, which is a good score, but not a huge score, and teams that start on the vault tend to need a big score to make that early statement.
The early statement was that not everything was going to go right when the third gymnast in the rotation, Ruby Harrold, failed to land her vault and scored a 9.