No. 21 Auburn Gymnastics Face No. 7 Alabama in Tuscaloosa - AuburnTigers.com

No. 21 Auburn Gymnastics Face No. 7 Alabama in Tuscaloosa First of Two SEC Road Meets

Coach Jeff Graba

Feb. 10, 2011

AUBURN - After two back-to-back home meets, the No. 21 Auburn gymnastics team (2-3, 2-2 SEC) travels to Tuscaloosa to take on No.7 Alabama (6-1, 1-1 SEC) at 7:30 pm in Coleman Coliseum. The Tigers are coming off a victory over Kentucky last Friday, 194.625-194.450. Friday night's meet will be on tape delay by FSN and is set to air Saturday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. CT.

"It's not hard to get these guys focused for Alabama, and I'm sure Alabama is not going to have too much trouble getting focused for us," Auburn head coach Jeff Graba said. "We didn't have a great meet last weekend. The result was good, but we feel we didn't perform up to par, especially on bars. For us, we love the fact that we are on the road. We love the fact that there is going to be a big crowd not necessarily for us, but we need to test ourselves that way and see how we handle it."

This is the 110th meeting between the two schools. In the last meeting, the Crimson Tide defeated the Tigers in Auburn, 195.650-195.200 on Jan. 8, 2010.

Auburn altered its practice routine to prepare for the conference road meet.

"We are coming off two weeks of really solidifying our home meet preparation schedule," Graba said. "Now we have two road meets in a row so we are definitely on road prep this week and next week. It's a little bit different. Wednesdays become a little more involved because we travel on Thursdays. In the home situation, we try to give them Wednesday off and do a little on Thursday."

During practice this week, the Tigers put extra work in on bars, which will be the first event against Alabama.

"This week we are working on how to start off," Graba said. "Knowing that we go to bars first and it's a hostile environment, we've been able to push bars pretty aggressively and been pretty tough on them."