No. 8 Auburn will take on No. 9 Alabama this Friday evening in a highly-anticipated top-10 matchup.
Auburn is 2-20 overall vs. Alabama in program history. The Tigers are 2-6 at home vs. the Crimson Tide with the last win coming in the 2020 season. With both teams sitting high in the rankings at this point in the season, Auburn is looking for its second SEC win of the season and its first at home.
The Tigers won their last meet at home vs. Iowa State. Auburn’s score of 197.350 was the highest so far this season and the second-highest score in program history.
Auburn looked solid on all apparatus, but vault is going to be a big deciding factor for the Tigers as well as cleaning up little mistakes on the other events. This is something that head coach Jeff Graba has emphasized that the team needs to do if it wants to pull off these bigger wins.
Auburn will need several of its standout gymnasts to perform at their peak levels to lead to a win over Alabama. Derrian Gobourne (9.850 on vault, 9.900 on bars and 9.975 on floor), Aria Brusch (9.875 on bars, 9.875 on beam and 9.900 on floor), Sophia Groth (9.875 on vault, 9.900 on beam and 9.850 on floor) and others like Suni Lee are just a few that need to put up big routines this week.
The Alabama squad went on a tear against Kentucky in its last meet. The Tide put up a huge score of 197.650, which they will be looking to do again against the Tigers. With a hard loss earlier in the season to an elite Florida program, Alabama will be looking to prove itself once again, but this time in an away meet.
Alabama put up astronomical scores on both bars and floor, earning a 49.550 and a 49.625 respectively. It will need athletes like Lexi Graber (9.800 on vault, 9.900 on beam and 9.950 on floor), Makarri Doggette (9.925 on vault, 9.950 on bars and 9.800 on beam) and others to put up their usual high scores to pull the Tide over the Tigers.
In a press conference this week, freshman Sophia Groth, junior Cassie Stevens and head coach Jeff Graba discussed what they were focusing on this week as the meet approached and what the team’s mindset is against Alabama.
“Our goals for this week are using our past themes from our previous meets of toughness, sharpness and consistency," Groth said. "We are going to add another one this week, and it’s going to be about progress and performance over perfection."
Groth also touched on how the team members know that they have the potential for more and are striving to achieve that in their practices.
Stevens delved into how the rivalry affects the team’s mindset during preparation and competition.
“It’s definitely in the back of everyone’s mind because you just want to win,” Stevens said. “We’re just trying to make sure we can do everything we can and look back at the end of week and say we did everything we could, there was nothing more we could’ve or wish we would’ve done.”
Graba also touched on the team’s mindset during this week of practice and how they are feeling about the upcoming matchup against Alabama.
"We all want this meet," Graba said. "This is why they came here. They came here for sellouts, they came here for national and international broadcasts, and they came here to go against the best.”
It will be the first top-10 matchup in Auburn Arena in six years.
“This is a top-10 matchup in Auburn Arena," Graba said. "I think it's one of the handful of top-10 matchups in Auburn gymnastics history. And what we want is for this to not be the anomaly. We want this to be the norm. And in order for it to be the norm, we have to perform.”
This highly-anticipated matchup will start at 8 p.m. CST in Auburn Arena Friday. The meet will be broadcast on ESPN2.
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Emily Porch is a senior from Sylacauga, Alabama. She joined The Plainsman in fall 2021.
Twitter: @emilycporch
