For three of the four rotations in the NCAA Los Angeles Regional, Auburn competed well enough to advance to the regional finals. One disastrous bars rotation, however, cost the Tigers their season as they failed to advance to the next round.
“When you get to this meet, you have to be really good to move on,” said head coach Jeff Graba. “You can’t have an event like we did on bars. We picked a bad night to have our worst night of the year.”
Auburn was the No. 12 seed in the tournament, with fifth-seeded Utah, Washington and Southern Utah competing against the Tigers in the regional opener.
The top two teams— Utah and Washington — advanced to compete on Saturday. Auburn finished in fourth place for its session, eliminating the Tigers from the championship.
Auburn, for the fourth-straight meet, had to compete without Suni Lee as she continued to recover from a non-gymnastics injury.
The Tigers began the quad meet on the floor, where they put up a rotation score of 49.375. It was a consistent performance for Auburn, which did not have to count a score below 9.850 in the rotation.
Highlighting the Tigers’ floor rotation was a 9.925 by Derrian Gobourne in what turned out to be her final floor performance for Auburn. The score of 49.375 tied Auburn with Utah for the best floor score of the session.
After one rotation, Auburn was in second place, only behind Utah.
The Tigers moved to the vault for the second rotation and again had consistent scores. The high scores for the rotation were bookend 9.875s by Caroline Leonard and Gobourne.
“Caroline on vault, going 9.875 on a 9.95 (start value) vault,” Graba said. “Derrian was great on floor. We got some really good performances, but as a group, not as consistent as we want.”
The Tigers dropped a 9.775 and each counted score was a 9.800 or better in the rotation. Auburn earned a rotation score of 49.200, the second-best vault score of the rotation, only behind Utah’s 49.625.
Halfway through the meet, the Tigers were in position to advance, remaining in second place behind the Utes.
Unfortunately for the Tigers, the wheels fell off in the third rotation. The first three gymnasts for Auburn in the event — Olivia Hollingsworth, Gabby McLaughlin and Sophia Groth — fell, putting the Tigers in a hole they could not crawl out of.
Though the final three gymnasts all hit their routines, highlighted by 9.900 for Aria Brusch and a 9.925 for Cassie Stevens, Auburn earned a rotation score of 48.150 — its worst rotation score in any event this season. The collapse on bars sent Auburn tumbling from second place down to last, where it remained for the remainder of the meet.
It was a stunning collapse for the nation’s 10th-rated bars team. The Tigers’ previous low score on the bars was a 49.200 against Missouri — over a full point better than what they achieved in Los Angeles.
Auburn scored a 49.175 on the balance beam in its final rotation — the lowest beam score of the session. The Tigers, however, did not suffer a fall in the rotation. Freshman Hannah Hagle led the Tigers with a 9.900 in the event.
“For (Hagle) to do that on beam was a huge deal,” Graba said.
Auburn concluded the meet with a score of 195.900, its lowest score in over two years — since a 195.575 scored against Alabama on Jan. 22, 2021.
The meet marked the end of the Auburn careers of Gobourne and Lee. Gobourne, along with Stevens, could advance to nationals as individual competitors. Individual competitors in nationals will be finalized following the regional final on Saturday.
Now that the season has concluded, the Tigers will look ahead to the 2024 season, which begins in just over nine months.
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Matthew is a senior from Huntsville, Alabama, majoring in journalism. He started with The Plainsman in fall 2021.
Twitter: @mattwallaceAU
