The nationally ranked Auburn gymnastics team is heading to Arkansas to compete as a four seed in the NCAA Fayetteville Regional held April 1 in Barnhill Arena.
“Regionals is a hit meet,” head coach Jeff Graba said. “It’s not really who you are going up against because if you don’t hit your routines, you aren’t going to make it out. We have the scoring potential to advance, but we are going up against some very tough opponents and need to be ready to perform.”
The Tigers will be joined by No. 1 seed and fourth-ranked team overall Utah. Denver and California will be the Nos. 2 and 3 seeds, while host Arkansas and Central Michigan are also set to compete.
The top two teams from each of the six regionals will advance to the NCAA Championships, April 14-15, in St. Louis.
Auburn is entering the postseason coming off a season-high score at the 2017 SEC Championship, finishing sixth overall with a 196.550. That score tied for the third-highest team total in program history at the conference meet.
“We took away from SECs that we can compete with anyone in the country,” Graba said. “We have a lot of talent on the team that isn’t isolated to just one or two people. If the team takes confidence away from SECs and builds off it, we can be dangerous at the national level.”
The No. 21 Tigers stand at 16th on bars (49.185), 21st on vault (49.050), tied for 19th on beam (49.095) and 23rd on floor (49.175).
“The last couple of meets, we’ve really brought things together a little bit more. We keep building up more and more each time,” Hlawek said. “I think we’re finally ready to peak at regionals.”
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