Gymnastics Closes Out Regular Season at Home against Auburn
3/28/2008 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
March 20, 2008
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - TUSCLOOSA, Ala. - The No. 6 ranked Alabama Gymnastics team closes out its regular season Friday against No. 12 Auburn in Coleman Coliseum starting at 7:30 p.m.
"This is our last meet before the championship season and we need to continue to move forward and make progress," Alabama head coach Sarah Patterson said. "We had our best meet of the season last week against Penn State, but we need another good performance before SECs."
Tickets for Friday's meet are available through RollTide.com and the Alabama Ticket Office (205.348.2262) located in the lobby of Coleman Coliseum. In addition to the Tide's weekly "Best Seat in the House" promotion that includes a free 42-inch plasma television to one lucky ticket holder, another fan will win a year's worth of cable from Comcast, five will win $50.00 Woods & Water gift cards and five more will take home $100.00 Regal Cinema gift cards.
Alabama posted a season high 197.3 against Penn State last Friday rebounding from a pair of substandard meets out on the West Coast the week before.
"We had gone all season without a bad meet," Patterson said. "And then we had two in one weekend, and hopefully we learned from that and have gotten it out of our system. The Penn State meet was a good effort, but there is still room to improve."
Patterson and company are also looking to extend the Tide's decades long win streak against Auburn. Alabama has rolled up 93 consecutive wins against the Tigers since 1979, the latest coming earlier this season at Auburn when the Tide came back on the last rotation to take a 196.425-195.9 win.
In addition to being the Tide's regular season finale, it is also Senior Night at the coliseum. The Tide will honor Scholastic All-American Kaitlin White, who earned a career-best 9.9 on the floor exercise last week against PSU, and two-time Olympic Silver Medalist and two-time NCAA Champion Terin Humphrey, who has earned 10 All-American honors during her Tide tenure.
And while the Tide will be honoring its veterans, it has been its sophomore class competing a majority of its routines, averaging 15 per meet over the last half of the season. Kassi Price, Morgan Dennis and Ricki Lebegern are all-around mainstays while Casey Overton competes three events. Adding freshman Kayla Hoffman's three events, the freshman and sophomore classes account for 18 of the Tide's 24 routines in competition.
Price moved up into the national top-10 in the all-around at No. 9 and Dennis is ranked 17th this week. Price is third on the uneven bars and 15th on the floor exercise. Dennis is also eighth on the floor exercise and 20th on the vault. Hoffman is fifth on the vault, 15th on the floor exercise and 25th on the uneven bars while Lebegern is 25th on the vault.
Players Mentioned
