April 19, 2013
AUBURN, Ala. -
The Auburn equestrian team's No. 4 seed Hunt Seat squad swept the points and defeated South Dakota State, 8-0, to advance to the semifinal round of the NCEA National Championships Friday at the Extraco Events Center in Waco, Texas.
The No. 9 seed Western team ended its season in a 5-3 loss to No. 1 seed Oklahoma State in the Western quarterfinals.
"Hunt Seat turned in some very dominant rides to come out with a clean sweep against South Dakota State," Auburn head coach Greg Williams said. "Our Western riders fell short to an extremely good team in Oklahoma State. We pushed hard to make up a couple of points and forced some costly errors. I am proud of the way they pushed."
Auburn collected all eight Hunt Seat points, winning both events 4-0. Jennifer Delman (147-140), Elizabeth Benson (179-137), Hasbrouck Donovan (169-140) and Christina Lin (152-130) rode on the flat, while Benson (184-122), Donovan (171-148), Lin (152-149) and Quincy Hayes (167-154) took points over fences.
"Sweeping the points is such a good feeling going into tomorrow," Lin said. "Riding against Baylor will be a little more of a challenge for us, but if we're as strong as we were today, we definitely should be in good shape to advance to the championship round."
The Western team earned points from Katsy Leeman (138.5-112) and Griffin Knight (148.5-145.5) in horsemanship and one from Cheyenne Cracraft (143-137) in reining.
The Hunt Seat squad will face No. 1 seed Baylor in the semifinals on Saturday. Auburn's Hunt Seat team lost to Baylor, 6-4, in Waco on March 2.
Live scoring for all of Saturday's competitions will be available at http://www.baylorbears.com/sports/w-equest/ncea-live-scoring.html.
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