Auburn gymnastics got a taste of success at the Michigan Tri-Meet, but didn’t quite get out unscathed.
The Tigers’ 197.175 was enough to beat the West Virginia Mountaineers (196.400), but wasn’t enough to best the hosts, the Michigan Wolverines (197.950). The meet saw Auburn take both its 11th win and its third loss on the year, and the tri-meet served as the Tigers’ regular-season finale before the team turns its focus to the upcoming SEC Championships.
Auburn started the meet off by taking the lead on bars, scoring a 47.375. Freshman star Sunisa Lee won the individual bars event with a 9.975. Freshman Sophia Groth tied for the individual victory on beam with a 9.950 and fifth-year gymnast Drew Watson won on the floor with a 9.925. Auburn was unable to win the floor event, but senior Derrian Gobourne led the Tigers with a 9.950.
Auburn gym coach Jeff Graba said in a release that he was happy with the team’s ability to bounce back after what he thought was a rough first few events.
“We finally turned it on at the end of the meet. I liked how we had to turn things around. We’ve had meets where things went well early in the lineup. You don’t need to work with that. Where you need to work is where things don’t go right. We had to do that in the first three events.”
Auburn is now set to tackle the SEC Championship meets in Birmingham, Alabama next weekend. Auburn had an impressive conference record, going 5-1-1 — its only loss was to in-state rivals Alabama and its only tie was to the Florida Gators in the Tigers’ home arena. There are certain areas to work on, but Auburn will look to put the loss to Michigan behind it and grab the SEC title before the ultimate goal of NCAAs in April.