After beating No.1 Georgia to take home the Southeastern Conference title and the recent addition of three established recruits, Auburn's Equestrian team is looking forward to what the 2010-2011 season has in store.
Coach Greg Williams said he thinks the team is in great condition to do well in the upcoming regular season and is looking forward to replacing some of what he referred to as outstanding seniors with talented additions to the team.
"I feel like we are going to be in great contention to win the SEC," Williams said.
Quincy Hayes of Ontario, Canada, Cassandra Rae Stambuk of Yorba Linda, Calif., and Jennifer Waxman of Chagrin Falls, Ohio are the new freshman recruits.
"We've got a lot of really good Hunt Seat recruits that are really strong on the national level, and they're definitely going to be good for us," said sophomore Hunt Seat rider Anna Becker.
Bailey Dymond, a senior in the Western division, said the new senior class should be well-equipped to lead the team especially having riders in both Western and Hunt Seat divisions.
"Good seniors that set good examples help strengthen the team overall, so I'm looking forward to that because we're pretty much all on the same page," Dymond said.
The team has a strong away schedule this season, but Williams said this is something they're all looking forward to. He also said the regular season schedule was going to be tougher for the team this year, but that this should be a positive reinforcement for how they do in the post season.
"For you to be a great team you have to win on the road as well as at home, so this will challenge us as a team," Dymond said.
Both Dymond and Becker explained being away more will give the team a better edge entering nationals because of the number of horses they will be able to ride over the course of the season.
"It probably will be more beneficial because we're going to get to ride a lot more horses that we're going to most likely be riding at nationals," Becker said.
Williams said forecasting nationals can be tricky because of split division competitions.
Looking at improvements from the previous season to the one ahead, Williams says that the key for this new team is going to be
keeping a winning attitude. He explained that the talent was there and with a positive attitude to work hard, the team would succeed.
"There's no doubt that we're one of the toughest teams in the country," Williams said.
Dymond agrees and said it is really important that individuals on the team support each other in order to keep the morale up throughout the season so that the team can do just as well in the SEC as well as at the national level.
"SECs was just a huge deal for us to win because we hadn't won since 2004," Becker said.
The Tigers will open the season Sept. 24 with
a doubleheader against South Dakota University and Kansas State University.
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