On the day before the Auburn gymnastics team travels to Texas for the NCAA National Championships, the team had one final practice in the McWhorter Center on April 14, followed by a short conference with coach Jeff Graba, Caitlin Atkinson and Bri Guy.
“There’s a lot of energy in the gym, a lot of excitement,” Atkinson said.
After placing second in the NCAA Regional on April 4 in Auburn, the Tigers earned one of the 12 possible spots in the national championship, a feat the program hasn’t achieved since 2003.
Despite reaching the national championship for only the third time in 22 years, the Tigers insist that the gravity of the situation won’t overwhelm them.
“I think everyone expects us to just go in there and explode, to just collapse,” Guy said. “They expect us to just not do well at all because it’s our first time there in 12 years. But we aren’t telling ourselves, ‘We have to be perfect,’ we’re just there to have fun.”
The Tigers’ side of the bracket, which includes SEC foes LSU and Alabama along with perennial power Oklahoma, will prove to be a tough draw as the Tigers will have to perform exceptionally well to advance to the Super Six.
“Of the 11 other teams there, the most national championships any of them have missed in the last decade is three,” Graba said. “This is the fourth in the history of our program, so we’re fighting an uphill battle. We have to be really good.”
No matter how well Auburn performs over the weekend, the Tigers know that what they have accomplished will be looked at as a springboard for the program, one that will allow it to become a consistent contender year-in and year-out.
“Our goal leading up to the postseason was to make nationals," Atkinson said. “Now that we’ve made it, we’re just trying to go out and do the gymnastics that we know, and if we make Super Six, that’s just an added bonus. If we don’t, we know that we gave it our all, and that’s what’s really important to us, just knowing that we’ve really changed the direction of this program and will continue to for the years to come.”
Auburn will compete Friday, April 17, at 7 p.m., and if they advance, they will then compete again Saturday, April 18, at 6 p.m.
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