Last Friday, No. 10 Alabama gymnastics lost its first road meet of the season to No. 6 Kentucky. This Friday, the Crimson Tide will host No. 1 Oklahoma for the first time as SEC opponents.
After missteps on the balance beam last week led the Crimson Tide to a loss, the team has been working all week to be the best it can on Friday.
“Obviously it wasn’t the result we wanted, but everybody was eager to get back in here,” junior Gabby Gladieux said. “We’re just eager for another opportunity to get better on Friday.”
Last season, the Crimson Tide lost to the Sooners but was still able to put up a score of 198.025. Oklahoma has long been bringing heat to NCAA gymnastics and won the national championship the last two seasons in a row.
“Oklahoma certainly brings a dominating presence,” head coach Ashley Johnston said. “It’s going to be important that we acknowledge that’s going to be there, but we have to keep our focus on what we can control, the presence that we bring into the arena and how we attack our routines.”
Even though this year marks the first season that Oklahoma is in the SEC, Alabama has been competing against the Sooners for several years.
“We’ve been knowing, preparing, aware that this was coming for a while now. We’ve actually had a matchup with Oklahoma over the past couple of years,” Johnston said. “We always want to prepare for the toughest competition, for the end of season and our postseason run, so Oklahoma has been on our schedule for a while now.”
Johnston said she wants the fans to show up and show out at Coleman Coliseum on Friday for a fun and tough SEC matchup.
“You’re going to see the best of the best gymnastics this weekend on Friday night,” Johnston said. “We want to create the home field environment, we want to create an excitement and enthusiasm in the air that makes it really fun for our team to compete in.”
The meet starts at 7 p.m. CT and can be streamed on SEC Network.