Auburn gymnastics falls at Missouri
Auburn gymnastics may have lost to Missouri on Friday, but Auburn still walked away with two event titles and a season-high road score in the loss.
Auburn gymnastics may have lost to Missouri on Friday, but Auburn still walked away with two event titles and a season-high road score in the loss.
“There are no excuses here. We take advantage of the opportunities,” Pearl said. “We play Kentucky on CBS. CBS put this game on a Saturday. There are a lot of other good SEC games, but they wanted Auburn vs. Kentucky, alright can we take advantage of it.”
“We’re getting better every day,” Rivera said. “We’re showing up to practice and we’re leaving knowing something we didn’t know when we got there. Every day we’re just striving to be the best athletes we can be and be the best team out there. We’re here with a chip on our shoulder and we’re going to prove ourselves right.”
“It was a great meet last Friday,” said head coach Jeff Graba. “I thought the energy level was really good. We’ve been pushing really hard to give a lot of opportunities for girls and I feel like it’s paying off now. We’re a pretty deep team and we’re a really talented team."
On Thursday, the SEC released its 2021 Baseball Preseason Coaches Poll along with its first and second-teams all-SEC. Auburn was picked to finish sixth in the SEC west; Rankin Woley and Ryan Bliss were selected to the first-team all-SEC.
Despite another double-double by Unique Thompson, Auburn was defeated 74-54 by Georgia Thursday night.
Auburn makes the trip to Athens, Georgia, on Thursday to face its fourth Top 25 team in its last five games.
Auburn baseball is looking to increase its pitching stamina and depth at catcher ahead of its first game of the season next Friday.
Jamal Johnson and Sharife Cooper both scored 19 points to help Auburn take down Vanderbilt 73-67 on Tuesday night.
On Tuesday, Derrian Gobourne was named SEC Specialist of the Week following her performance against No. 2 LSU last Friday. She’s the first Auburn gymnast to earn a Gymnast of the Week honor this season.
Despite a career-day from Honesty Scott-Grayson on Sunday, Auburn could not contain Missouri's offense in the 85-75 loss. “Our defense wasn’t there,” Williams-Flournoy said. “Missouri is a very good offensive team, but to give up 85 points was just way too many.”
With 13 seconds left in overtime and Auburn down by three, Sharife Cooper's 3-pointer hit the rim and bounced up in the air. Silence fell over the crowd as the ball hovered around the rim before bouncing and falling through the net to tie the game. Auburn Arena erupted in cheers, which was soon followed by silence when Ole Miss point guard Devontae Schuler knocked down a game-winning jumper as time expired.
“They're No. 2 (in the SEC) in forcing turnovers, so we have historically turned it over against them,” Pearl said. “They get a lot of offense out of their defense. We’ve got to be locked in defensively.”
“I’m pretty happy with the girls, we still have a lot of young people that are finding their feet out there, but I’m really proud with the way they handled it,” said head coach Jeff Graba. “First 197 in almost two years, pretty big deal for me."
Tyrone Truesdell and Grant Loy are returning to Auburn in 2021. The pair are using the extra year of eligibility that the NCAA granted to its athletes because of the pandemic affected season.
“We took advantage of the bye week,” Graba said. “We did give them one day off and tried to let them rest up. We got some people back, partially back or hopefully on the way to getting fully back from being on the outside looking in. I think we’re stronger this week."
Auburn soccer announced its schedule for the 2021 spring season on Friday. Auburn will open its season on Feb. 19 against Kennesaw State at the Auburn Soccer Complex.
Auburn added some depth to its running back room on Friday with the signing of 3-star running back Jarquez Hunter. Hunter is the 18th signee in Auburn's 2021 recruiting class.
“You can definitely see why South Carolina is the [No. 2] team in the country,” said head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy. “They’re very good, and they get you at so many positions. They’re tough to guard, and starting out in the first quarter like we did, that doesn’t really help you plan against the [No. 2] team in the country.”
On Wednesday, Bryan Harsin and Auburn signed six players to its 2021 recruiting class. The Tigers now have signed 17 total players to their 2021 class. Here’s some info on each player that signed on Wednesday and what Harsin had to say about them.