Auburn Gymnastics Thursday Update - AuburnTigers.com - Auburn University Official Athletic Site

Auburn Gymnastics Thursday Update SEC Championship

Kylie Shields

March 17, 2011

AUBURN - The No. 22 Auburn gymnastics team (6-6, 2-4 SEC) is wrapping up preparations for Saturday's meet at the SEC Championship. After a recent stretch of three meets in eight days, the Tigers are looking for a strong start to postseason competition.

"The whole philosophy here is to try to peak at the right time," Auburn head coach Jeff Graba said. "We're trying to be as healthy as we can at the end of the season, and we feel like if we're healthy then we'll be able to allow our talent to show through.

"We've tried to train with stops and starts. That's basically how the meet is going to go. It's going to be a lot of energy for about 30 minutes and then a break for about 40 minutes and then back to a lot of energy. We're going to be doing that off and on throughout the meet, so we've tried to train similar to that at times, but really the secret is we just need to be healthy."

Auburn plans to utilize the same lineup on Saturday as it did in last Friday's meet against Southeast Missouri State.

"What we've tried to do over the last few weeks is make our lineup more predictable," Graba said. "We've made changes, but the goal is that if changes need to be made, we're going to make those same changes again. Basically, the person who will substitute will be the one who has already substituted on each event. We're just trying to make it more predictable."

The Tigers will face top-ranked Florida, No. 2 Alabama, No. 8 Georgia, 12th-ranked Arkansas, No. 19 LSU and Kentucky on Saturday at 4 p.m. CT at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham, Ala.

Tickets are on sale now by calling (800) 745--3000, (205) 458-8449 or by logging onto www.SECsports.com. Adult tickets are $16, age 10 and under $10, and are for reserved seating. Walk-up sales are also available on the day of the event.

A two-hour highlight show of the meet will air on a tape-delay basis on Sunday, April 3, on ESPN2 at 3:00 p.m. CT.

Auburn's projected lineups for the SEC Championship meet are:

Vault: Petrina Yokay, Allyson Sandusky, Lauren Brzostowski, Kylie Shields, Justine Foster and Toi Garcia

Uneven Bars: Abbey Habicht, Toi Garcia, Leah Vining, Petrina Yokay, Allyson Sandusky and Kylie Shields

Balance Beam: Lauren Brzostowski, Toi Garcia, Abbey Habicht, Allyson Sandusky, Rachel Inniss and Kylie Shields

Floor Exercise: Lauren Brzostowski, Laura Lane, Justine Foster, Kylie Shields, Toi Garcia and Rachel Inniss