AUBURN, Ala. – With one big hurdle left before Nationals, the Alabama Crimson Tide gymnastics team heads into practice confident about what tomorrow will hold during team compeition. The Tide is competing against a few familiar faces in Auburn and ready for the unique compeition that Maryland, Minnesota, Iowa, and George Washington will bring. Alabama is the number one seed in this compeition and needs to place in first or second to advance on to Forth Worth for the 2015 National Championship.
Alabama is no stranger to the NCAA Regional Championship. In the past thirty years, the Tide has won 29 titles and placed second three times. The last time Alabama entered into Auburn for the Regional Championship in 1991 the Tide, and then sophmore Dana (Duckworth) Dobransky, came away with the title. To keep the streak alive, the Tide needs to keep sticking their landings. In the past few weeks, Coach Dana Duckworth has stressed the importance of those landings and we saw in the SEC Championship just how important they are to clenching a title.
Practice produced nothing less than Alabama’s usual pure talent and spunk. Fluid, clean lines dominated the four 20 minute rotations with a few missteps on landings. On bars, Aja Sims shined brightest with impeccable moves and sticking most of her practice landings. On beam, Nikki Guerrero had showed off her talent despite continuing to fight back spasms that plagued her earlier this season. In the last three meets, Nikki has competed solely on beam including helping the Tide reach a 49.525 in that rotation against Oklahoma in the final home meet of the season. After competing on podium for the last 2 out of 3 meets, the practice floor rotation allowed Alabama to test the boundaries of the floor in Auburn Arena while having a little fun. Concluding on vault, Alabama got to practice sticking more landings and managed to do so without any major missteps.
All in all, the Tide finished up practice day looking to compete confidently tomorrow in the 2015 Regional Championship. However, Alabama will need to come ready to work as the remaining five competitors aren’t planning on handing the title and the chance to go to Nationals in Fort Worth to the Crimson Tide. Every rotation of the meet will air exclusively on 90.7 The Capstone with a pregame show starting at 5:30pm. With one day at Auburn in the books, Alabama only has one more left of fiercemail Regional Championship compeition.
