In front of an Auburn Arena crowd of more than 5,000 spectators, the Auburn gymnastics team opened up their season with a 194.875-189.825 victory over Texas Woman's University, who has won nine USA Gymnastics national titles.
Despite falling off the beam a few times, Auburn bounced back and won every other event. Texas Woman's lone win in the meet came in beam where they won by a score of 48.45-47.65.
"Beam is going to be and is one of our best events, it's just a couple hiccups but the rest of the meet is what we expect from this team and it's only going to get better," Head Coach Jeff Graba said.
In floor, uneven bars and vault, Auburn won by a large margin of 147.224-141.4. A few Auburn gymnasts also had career bests on the night.
Sophomore Lexus Demers tied her career high score on vault and set new career bests on both beam and floor.
"It feels really good. It was not expected but I'm really happy I was able to do something about it," Demers said.
The home crowd also featured approximately 2,000 students in the stands supporting the team.
"I was surprised at how many people came for our first home meet seeing us beat Texas Woman's, who is a great school. I was surprised but it felt really good having all of those people supporting us," Demers said.
Although the team had a few mistakes during the meet, it was Auburn's best season opening score under fourth year head coach Graba.
"Typically my teams are going to start a little slow because we try to get our feet wet in the first meet and then ramp up," Graba said. "I'm not surprised that we had a couple of hiccups, but this team is going to ramp it up a lot faster than the last three teams."
Auburn's next meet is at home Friday Jan. 17 against the defending national champions and current No. 1 team, the University of Florida Gators.
"I think we just have to go back and continue to practice like we have been and things are going to fall into place," Graba said.
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