No. 15 Auburn gymnastics returns to the Plains Friday night to host No. 7 Missouri in its final meet before the SEC Championships in Tulsa, Okla.
Auburn is still looking to grab its first conference win of the season, and this is its last chance to use the electric atmosphere in Neville Arena to its advantage.
Auburn currently sits at No. 15 in the national rankings with a 4-11 (0-7 SEC) record and a National Qualifying Score of 196.603.
Auburn’s vault team ranks No. 11 nationally with an NQS of 49.206, beam No. 12 with an NQS of 49.231, and floor just in the top 20 at No. 19 with an NQS of 49.242.
Auburn is coming off a great scoring weekend at the annual Elevate the Stage meet in Huntsville, Ala., where they put up a 197.200 after their loss two days earlier to No. 11 Michigan State at home where they still successfully scored a 196.975.
“This road we’ve been on these last couple of meets has been good,” head coach Jeff Graba said. “We’ve done a really good job at putting some things together and we now have more people available to us. We still have work to do and that will be the main focus on Friday. We have to go up there and put together all four events. We’ve come close a lot of times. We need to finish the regular season off the right way, and we can do that this Friday at home.”
Junior Julianne Huff leads Auburn all-around as she holds a 39.395 NQS, putting her at No. 13 in the national rankings.
Junior Paige Zancan leads the team on vault with a 9.895 NQS which puts her No. 18 in the national rankings and sophomore Marissa Neal thrives on vault as well, scoring three-straight 9.9s or better as well as a career high of 9.925 on Friday.
As for Missouri, they currently sit at No. 7 in the rankings with a 10-4 (3-4 SEC) record, and a National Qualifying Score of 197.213.
Senior Lauren Macpherson leads Missouri with an NQS of 9.725 on bars and 9.890 on beam. The team is coming off a road trip loss to No. 6 Georgia and is hoping to even out its conference record before the end of the regular season.
The last time the two Tiger teams met, Missouri upset Auburn. Historically, Auburn holds 22 wins to 13 losses over Missouri, never losing in Neville Arena.
“We are up against what has kind of become a rival for us,” Graba said. “Missouri is really good and have been a really good test for us these last couple of years. We need a packed Neville Arena and there is no better place to watch a gymnastics meet than Neville Arena."
Auburn and Missouri will face off to close out the regular season on Friday, March 13, at 7 p.m. CST.
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