BATON ROUGE, La. – The No. 20 Auburn gymnastics team saw big routines Friday night from its young squad in a tough environment on the road, scoring a 196.275 at No. 7 LSU in Baton Rouge. LSU earned the win with a 196.575 in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
"We showed some jitters tonight, but did a great job settling down as the meet went on," head coach Jeff Graba said. "I am so proud of this group because we have a bunch of fighters on this team. This group did a great job handling the pressure and we made a big step tonight."
Three Tiger freshmen competed for the team on the night in Aria Brusch, Adeline Sabados and Cassie Stevens. Brusch, of Cincinnati, Ohio, set two career highs for Auburn, earning a 9.875 on beam and a 9.9 on floor. She added a 9.825 on bars.
"We have a great team atmosphere and we can help boost each other as the meet goes on," Brusch said. "Tonight really helped my confidence knowing I can perform well not just at home, but on the road as well."
Sabados set a career best on bars with a 9.825, while Stevens earned a spot in the all-around for the second-straight meet. The Phoenix, Ariz., product's 39.050 was a career score and her 9.825s on vault and floor were also bests in her early career.
For the second-straight meet, the Auburn beam squad highlighted the team's performance overall as they scored a season-best 49.275. Junior Meredith Sylvia tied her season score with a 9.9, earning a tie for the event title.
"It felt good to hit again, but I just take it one meet at a time and don't think much about the previous week," Sylvia said. "We were able to group back together and finish strong and that's really exciting."
Junior Drew Watson was in the all-around once again for Auburn, putting together a 39.075.
The Tigers return to Auburn Arena next week, hosting Missouri. The two teams will go head-to-head at 7 p.m. CT and the meet will be streamed on SEC Network+.
"This is a fun team to watch," Graba said. "We're in every meet and we're getting better each week. We took big steps tonight and I'm excite to see what we do next Friday at home against Missouri."
BARS
Auburn opened the meet on bars, scoring a season-best 49.225. Sophomore Derrian Gobourne picked up where she left off last week, tying her career high with a 9.925 and winning the event title in the anchor position. Sabados and Brusch went 9.825 each and senior Gracie Day put together a 9.875 for the team. Watson's 9.775 also contributed to the overall score.
VAULT
Stevens and Gobourne led the team with a pair of 9.825s as the score was a career high for Stevens. Junior Jada Glenn added a season-best 9.8 and the Tigers counted a 9.625 from Watson and a 9.5 by senior Skyler Sheppard for a 48.575 in the second rotation.
FLOOR
Auburn picked it back up in rotation three, earning a 49.200 on floor. Sheppard tied her career high from last week with a 9.9 to guide the squad, while Brusch also added a career score with a 9.9. Stevens competed in the second slot for the Tigers and earned a 9.825, while Watson went 9.8 and Gobourne anchored at 9.775.
BEAM
The beam team kept momentum going to finish strong, putting together a 49.275. Sylvia shared the event title with her second-straight 9.9 of the season and Watson and Brusch either set or tied their career high with a 9.875 each. Fifth-year seniors Sheppard and Emma Slappey added a 9.825 and 9.8, respectively.