After opening SEC competition with a 10-10 tiebreak win over the South Carolina Gamecocks Saturday, the Auburn equestrian team is preparing to continue its success when it meets Kansas State University at home Oct. 21.
"We really just want to make sure we're fundamentally sound at least until we get through all these fall events, and then we'll start ratcheting it up a little bit," said coach Greg Williams. "Staying out of the penalty box--we're going to have to get that part fixed, but if they stay united as a team we're going to be quite a force in the spring."
Although the Tigers won Saturday's meet, it was by a mere 41.5 points, the final score being 1486-1444.5. Many of the girls dropped points for inaccuracies.
"I'm going to try to work on my turns and my jumps and try to keep everything a little bit smoother looking and not so rough," said sophomore Christina Lin.
"We have some stuff to work on as an equestrian team," said senior Kristin Hansen. "We definitely have a really strong team this year, but a bunch of room for improvement. I think by next week we're going to work hard, and we'll be (ready) for Kent State."
The upcoming match will likely test the team's skills in each category. Kansas State has only one win for the season, beating Minnesota-Crookston 19-0. They will face Baylor University Friday morning.
"Next week what we're going to do is, when we get those patterns we're going to work on what we made mistakes on because we definitely had mistakes," Hansen said. "And clean those up and then we'll go out there and get that pattern down because we don't want any bobbles. As long as we have clean patterns, we'll be good. We have great riders."
The Tigers will meet Kansas State at the AU Horse Center Friday at 3 p.m.
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