Freshman gymnast Caitlin Atkinson was named SEC Gymnast of the Week Tuesday, Feb. 26 after her season-high total of 39.550 last Friday against No. 6 LSU helped the Tigers score a program record of 197.175 in the victory.
"I'm blown away by her a lot," said Head Coach Jeff Graba. "She has some of the biggest gymnastics that I've been apart of, and I've been apart of a lot. Her distance on the bars is just an unbelievable thing to watch. She's about five feet above the bar which means she's about 15 feet in the air."
Atkinson equaled her career high on bars against LSU with a 9.90.
"I watch scores, but I wasn't even watching the scores, so I had no idea," Atkinson said. "I don't really think anyone did. We just went out there and did what we needed to do for ourselves."
The gymnastics team has had a good year, scoring above 190 in every meet this year, but still has lost seven meets on the year. Against LSU though, everything was able to come together for the Tigers.
"I think we were finally just able to put it all together," Atkinson said. "We've had good meets where beams were amazing or bars were amazing, but last week we put vault, beams, bars all together at once. Not necessarily that we haven't been doing that, but we did it with that extra oomph to it."
Even after Atkinson and the rest of the teams' record night, Graba believes that the team is capable of doing that every time they compete.
"We've been telling these guys that's just an average night for us," Graba said. "We feel that we are that good and we need to improve on that. The big battle is getting them to believe that they're that good."
Atkinson was also named SEC freshman of the week Tuesday, Feb. 5 for her performance on the road at Missouri.
"It feels pretty amazing, but it also tells me that I have to keep working hard," Atkinson said. "I can't just give up because I got that title."
With Atkinson only being a freshman she has had to adjust to the pressure of competing as a team in college, instead of individually.
"If you mess up sometimes it can come back on you," Atkinson said. "I'm later in a lot of the lineups so if someone earlier in the lineup messes up then I know it's going to fall back on me so it's more pressure."
As the season has got further along though she has learned ways of dealing with the pressure.
"We do a lot of pressure sets in the gym and we do a lot of lineup sets, and as the season goes I've got more confident in myself so it's got better," Atkinson said.
For her, being comfortable and confident are the keys to having success.
"If you're on beam and your not comfortable with yourself then you're probably going to make little mistakes," Atkinson said. "If you're comfortable with it then it's going to be a lot better than if you're thinking of every little thing that can go wrong."
The gymnastics team will return to action Friday, March 1 against No. 23 Maryland for the annual Flip for the Cure Pink meet at 7 p.m. at Auburn Arena.
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