The five-year Auburn career of Derrian Gobourne came to a close on Thursday at the NCAA Championships.
Though Auburn did not qualify as a team, Gobourne’s floor score in the regional qualified her to compete for an individual championship on the event. Gobourne competed at the end of the first rotation in the second semifinal, after the Utah Utes gymnasts had performed on the floor.
“I was just grateful at the end,” Gobourne said. “Grateful that I had a great career and that I was able to end it like that at nationals.”
With her brother, who helped choreograph the routine, watching amongst the crowd, Gobourne scored a 9.9125 in her final routine as an Auburn Tiger.
She earned one perfect 10 in her career — a meet-tying 10 on floor against Florida on March 4, 2022.
It was the fourth time Gobourne competed for an individual national championship, placing second on both bars and floor in 2022 and winning the championship for vault in 2019. In total, Gobourne made three separate trips to Fort Worth, Texas for nationals in her time with Auburn — 2019, 2022 and 2023.
Gobourne was named an All-American on floor three times, earning first-team honors in 2021 and 2022 and being named to the second team in 2023.
Her 2019 championship on vault was the first in the history of Auburn gymnastics and is currently one of two for the Tigers, joining Suni Lee’s 2022 beam title.
“My career has just been a blessing,” Gobourne said. “It was more than I could’ve asked for. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I first got to Auburn. I didn’t know who I was going to be and that I would be able to do all these things. I’m just so thankful.”
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Matthew is a senior from Huntsville, Alabama, majoring in journalism. He started with The Plainsman in fall 2021.
Twitter: @mattwallaceAU
