Auburn gymnastics will close out its regular season with a trip to Nashville for the Kidney Care Women's Gymnastics Championship on Saturday night.
The meet will host four teams, with Auburn slated to go head to head with No. 6 Kentucky, No. 15 Ohio State, and Fisk.
"These are all tough matchups," head coach Jeff Graba said. “We've got a lot on our plate and this is going to be a difficult meet. We're excited to have a ton of Auburn fans in attendance and we're at that point in the season because it's all about our performance and we need to show up."
Auburn has already seen the Kentucky Wildcats once this season. The Tigers fell to the Wildcats at home by a score of 197.025-197.475. At the time, it was a season-high score for Auburn.
Since then, Auburn has continued to improve. The Tigers now sit with a stellar season best of 197.725. The score, coming against the Alabama Crimson Tide, was due in large part to graduate student Cassie Stevens’ career-high 39.700 all-around score.
Stevens will be primed for another big performance on Saturday night when she competes in her final collegiate regular season meet.
The Tigers will be on beam for their first rotation. This will be the first time Auburn has started on beam since the Mean Girls Super 16, the first meet of the season. The rotation will likely consist of Stevens, senior Gabby McLaughlin, graduate student Aria Brusch, senior Olivia Hollingsworth and junior Sophia Groth. Freshman Paige Zancan and redshirt freshmen Olivia Greaves and Hailey John round out the top eight for rotation one.
After beam, Auburn will head to floor for their second rotation. Coach Graba has sent out a very consistent floor lineup this season. Hollingsworth enters the meet with a 9.915 national qualifying standard, with teammates Stevens, McLaughlin, Brusch and Groth falling in right behind her in terms of efficiency and score.
One of Auburn’s trickier events comes third. The Tigers will look to bounce back after a rough outing on vault in their last meet. Their 49.025 was a season-low score. Freshman Julianne Huff and junior Sara Hubbard are primed to make another vault rotation for the Tigers, along with Zancan, Hollingsworth, Stevens, Groth, Greaves and senior Sydney Schumaker.
They will close Saturday night on bars. Auburn opened their season on bars with a 49.325, and have only reached that mark one time since. The rotation of sophomore Hannah Hagle, freshman Emma Grace Boyd, Stevens, Brusch, Hollingsworth, McLaughlin, Groth and Greaves will look to get the Tigers above that number.
"We're just trying to continue to build as we're now on the podium for the next couple of meets," Graba said. "We have one more opportunity until postseason and we need to capitalize."
Following this meet, it will be straight to postseason gymnastics for Auburn. The SEC gymnastics championships will get underway in New Orleans on March 23, just seven days after the Kidney Care Women's Gymnastics Championship.
The Tigers will start first rotation in Nashville, Tennessee, at 7:15 p.m. CT. There is currently no scheduled coverage of the meet.
