Alabama gymnastics secures road win over Arkansas
February 9, 2019
The Alabama gymnastics team, ranked No. 8 nationwide, defeated No. 22 Arkansas on the road on Friday night by the score of 196.700 to 195.800.
The score was the Crimson Tide’s fourth-highest in six meets this season.
Sophomore Lexi Graber competed in all four events for the fifth time this year, scoring a 39.375 that included tying her career-best vault score of 9.95.
At least one gymnast scored a 9.9 or better in each event for Alabama: Graber on vault and again on the balance beam (9.9), junior Shea Mahoney on the floor exercise (9.9) and freshman Emily Gaskins on bars (9.925, her best score yet in any event). All four scores won their respective events.
“We continue to have some great individual performances,” UA head coach Dana Duckworth said in a release. “The improvements we are seeing week-to-week in practice are changing the drive and fire of the team and the maturity and growth mentally in competition is on track. Therefore, we stay the course and continue to trust the process. That being said, we still haven’t put together a complete four-rotation meet and it’s time.”
For the first time this season, the team did not set a new season high in any of the four events. However, three of the four event scores were still above the team’s season average, the only exception being vault.
Senior Abby Armbrecht, returning to the lineup after missing last week’s meet with a stomach bug, competed in three events for the first time in three weeks, scoring 9.8 or above on all of them.
Alabama returns to Coleman Coliseum for its annual Power of Pink meet on Friday, Feb. 15 to take on the No. 2-ranked Florida Gators.
