Fresh off their victory over Kentucky, the Tigers travel to Tuscaloosa Friday night to take on the Crimson Tide.
The Tide is rolling out of Gainesville with a loss, and the Tigers are prowling for another victory.
The Tigers are 2-3 for the season and 2-2 in the Southeastern Conference, while Alabama is 6-1 for the season and 1-1 in the SEC.
The Tigers are determined to put the past 99 total losses to the Tide behind them and face them with full force.
"We are doing a lot of team pressure sets to see if the girls can handle being put in different situations," said head coach Jeff Graba.
During their two days of practice, the women will test their individual strengths while being put in different meet situations.
Senior Rachel Inniss earned first place for the individual floor exercise with sophomore Toi Garcia placing second against Kentucky last Friday.
For the uneven parallel bars event, junior Kylie Shields earned second place.
Sophomore Petrina Yokay earned all-around third place.
"We only have two real days of practice--we travel on Thursday, and Wednesday we will work on some light individual stuff," Graba said.
Shields received second with her performance on the balance beam with her teammate Inniss right behind her with the third place spot.
At the end of the 2010 season, Shields ended with season-best scores in vault, bars and tied for a season-high on beam.
She scored a career best on floor exercise against Kentucky.
During the 2010 Kentucky meet, she received her first all-around title.
Although the team won the Kentucky meet, the women did not perform to their expectations.
The team had a season-low of 48.100 on the uneven bars which almost cost the Tigers the meet.
"As a group, we did not do a very good job tonight," Graba said. "This was our best week of practice; we keep getting better in the gym and then we just didn't bring our A-game tonight, and that is the frustrating part."
After the minor letdowns of the Kentucky meet, the Tigers are ready to face the next opponent and earn the victory.
The team understands its mistakes and is determined to win against Alabama.
"We need to make the W something we are proud of," Inniss said. "It's my last year. I want to work hard."
"We need to start settling down and figuring out people's roles," Graba said. "A lot of the other girls stepped up when they had a chance."
Graba wants the girls who have been out of the lineup back in against Alabama for more scoring potential.
"That's been our goal, to slowly get some of these people who have been out of the lineup back in," Graba said. "It's been good to see Kylie step in on vault. That is the good thing--we are getting more scoring potential."
Alabama's Megan Mashburn and Rachel Terry compete in vault, beam, floor and bars.
Last season Mashburn scored a season high vault score during the Arkansas meet.
This season, several Alabama gymnasts are contributing to the team's success.
Senior all-around gymnast Kayla Hoffman has individual highs more than 9.9 points for every event.
Sophomore all-around Ashley Sledge is also performing well, earning a 9.925 on uneven bars at the Metroplex Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, Jan. 29.
Alabama also posted a season-high team score of 196.825 at the challenge, recording over 49 points in each event.
The Tide is ranked seventh nationally this week, falling one spot after taking its first loss of the season from top-ranked Florida.
In events, Alabama is ranked second on the vault and third on the floor exercises as well as eighth on the balance beam and 22nd on the uneven bars.
Graba said even though his team won its last meet, he understands the improvements which still need to be made.
"We do bring a lot of positives out of some of these meets," Graba said. "I think that this was a hiccup more than it was actually our team. It's good to go out and get a win, but it doesn't feel good when you don't go out and do your best job."
The Tigers will travel to Tuscaloosa Friday to take on the Crimson Tide in the Iron Bowl of gymnastics.
The game will be held at 7:30 p.m. at Coleman Coliseum and will be televised by Fox Sports Network.
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