Alabama Gymnastics Travels to Florida for SEC Opener
1/19/2007 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
The challenges don't get any easier in week two of the season for the No. 4 ranked Alabama Gymnastics team.
A week after posting a come-from behind win over Oklahoma to open the season in the friendly confines of Coleman Coliseum, Alabama takes to the road to take on the No. 1 ranked Florida Gators.
"When I was voting on the preseason coaches poll, I had Georgia one and Florida two," Alabama head coach Sarah Patterson said. "And this week Florida 's No. 1 and Georgia second. Florida had been building toward this since hiring Rhonda Faehn four years ago. They are a strong veteran team and I think it's going to be a very good meet."
Florida, fourth at the NCAA Championships a year ago, cruised to an easy victory at the season opening Super Six Challenge and followed that up with a similar effort to beat Oregon State last week.
Alabama opened the season strong against Oklahoma despite a shaky night on the uneven bars where two falls forced Alabama to count an 8.85 score in its final total. The Tide posted its best opening meet score since 2004 to upend the Sooners.
"While we obviously had some steps to take on the uneven bars, I was most pleased by how our ladies came back from those mistakes with determination and resolve," Patterson said. "They really dug in and showed that they are competitors."
In addition to a solid balance beam set after a pair of falls on the uneven bars, Alabama finished off its first meet of the season with a stellar set of floor exercise routines, led by freshmen Kassi Price and Morgan Dennis who scored 9.9 and 9.925 respectively. Both Dennis and the Tide are ranked No. 1 on the floor exercise this week.
"Floor is certainly going to be one of our strengths this year," Patterson said. "We're just working on our endurance right now. It takes a little more energy to ??perform' a routine than it does to ??do' a routine in practice and our ladies discovered that last Friday."
More than anything else, last week's meet gave the Tide a starting point for its season. Patterson remarked before the meet that her team would likely not get any better until they went through their first competition, a sentiment she echoed this week.
"Our first two practices after the meet were our best since coming back from the break," she said. "We got more done in those two practices than we had in the whole week before the meet. I think once our ladies experienced what it's like to compete in front of 12,000 of our wonderful fans, they came back and worked even harder than before because they want to get out in front of our crowds and stay out there."
Alabama and the Gators square off at 6 p.m. CT in the O'Connell Center on the Florida campus. Fans can follow all the action with Chad Anderson and Leesa Davis on WVUA-FM 90.7 or online at www.wvuafm.ua.edu. Fans at the meet will be able to hear the broadcast on 88.1 FM. Live scoring and play-by-play will be available online at www.gymtide.com.
