April 21, 2008

Auburn, Ala. - It's hard to believe that the season is coming to an end! It has been an incredible year and this team has grown closer to one another than any other team I've been a part of. We came a long way from our first few meets of the year, and we definitely proved it during the postseason....

SEC Championships is always one of my favorite meets of the year because of all the excitement that surrounds it. This year was no different! We left Auburn for the short trip to Atlanta, Ga, Thursday afternoon, and of course stopped at one of our favorite places for a snack, TCBY. Friday morning was spent shopping at the Mall of Georgia. If you can't tell, we love to shop! After a great practice on the podium, we headed to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. The rest of the night was spent relaxing and preparing for the big day.

When it seemed like Saturday night would never come, it was finally there. And what can I say? We did amazing! We hit 24 routines for 24, which is not an easy feat at SEC Championships. When the scores came up at the end of the night we finished fifth with a 196.1, the highest by any Auburn team at SEC's since 1986. This catapulted us into the number twelve ranking nationally, one of our goals from the beginning of the year. The night just kept getting better though as Lindsey received Co-SEC Gymnast of the Year and Jeff was named Co-SEC Coach of the Year. We couldn't have been more proud of either one of them. Lindsey has been a leader all year long and anyone that can deal with us day-in and day-out certainly deserves coach of the year!

After heading back to Auburn, we got a few days off and then got back to work for NCAA Regionals. We were the number two seed for the first time ever, but this didn't mean that we could relax. After a week and a half of hard work, we left for Penn State on Thursday morning and it was an all day long trip. After dinner at Rotelli's Pizza and Pasta we were exhausted and headed to bed. We walked through downtown State College and explored the campus Friday morning before practice. That night was spent eating dinner as a team and preparing for Saturday.

Well, regionals may not have turned out the way we wanted, as we finished fourth, but there were still a lot of highlights. We hit 21 of our very best routines that night. A few uncharacteristic mistakes on beam cost us a trip to NCAA Nationals as a team, but it really showed everyone how capable we are of making nationals and becoming one of the best teams in the nation. I believe that we truly learned a lot at Penn State and for all but the four seniors, there will be another chance to prove it.

All in all, it was great season and these girls have become like sisters to me. We did some things that haven't been done by Auburn gymnastics before and there will definitely be great things to come in the next few years! Thank you so much for all of your support over the last four years and I will do my very best to represent Auburn well in Athens for NCAA's. WAR EAGLE!!