This Saturday’s home gymnastics meet is an important one in several ways for the Crimson Tide: No. 8 Alabama has a chance to improve its national standing as the postseason inches closer, and the No. 10-ranked Georgia GymDogs are coming to town for a continuation of a decades-long rivalry. 

It’s also the final home meet of the season, which means it will be senior night for the three seniors: Wynter Childers, Maddie Desch and Shea Mahoney.

Alabama coach Dana Duckworth said the seniors bought in 100% to this season’s goals at the first team meeting last April.

“I feel very blessed right now with three totally different personalities in the senior class who just committed to [saying], ‘We’re going to buy into everything we’re being asked to do. No one’s going to create a negative attitude towards the goals and aspirations that our coaches want for us and our team,’” Duckworth said. “I feel like they have truly lived that, and that is why they have been difference-makers.”

All three seniors have been flexible in adjusting to whatever roles the team needs them in. For example, Desch was put in the beam lineup at the last minute against Kentucky when others couldn’t go because of injuries. 

“I had to ask Maddie [Desch] to take a brand new beam routine we hadn’t even done yet, literally, in pressure situations and say, ‘Hey, let’s just go for it,’” Duckworth said. 

On top of filling in on beam, Desch has excelled in the floor lineup since her freshman season and is currently ranked 30th in the country on the event. Outside of the gym, Duckworth described Desch as one of the most diligent “studiers” she has ever seen as she works toward a job in the medical field one day.

Childers competed in all four events in her previous three seasons at Alabama, but because of a knee injury, she has been limited to just training and competing on bars this season. 

“To watch Wynter navigate this disappointment of not being able to do more because of her knee and realizing that her gymnastics is what she does, it doesn’t define who she is – [it] brings completeness, honestly, to me,” Duckworth said.

Childers said that bars was her worst event coming out of high school and that she thought she would compete for every event except bars in college.

“And here I am only training bars, which is wild,” Childers said. 

Even though this is not what she was expecting for her senior season and it has been difficult at times, Childers has fully embraced her new role on the team.

“My goal after every meet is to lose my voice because I want to be the loudest one I can, and it’s happening every meet,” Childers said. “I want us to do so well. It’s more fun to put your energy into somebody else, and I think that’s probably one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in school.”

Mahoney has been a steady presence in the bars lineup since her freshman year and has been in the vault and floor lineups since her sophomore year.

Last week against Kentucky, she scored a career-high 9.900 on vault and tied a career-high 9.950 on floor. However, she still has had to shift around in the lineups because of injuries to other teammates.

“I think it just goes back to owning your role,” Mahoney said. “It doesn’t matter where you go. It doesn’t matter if you’re going or not. You have a job to do. And that’s just the mindset that I’ve kind of taken on.”

Duckworth said it brings her “incredible internal joy” to have watched Mahoney grow into a free and self-confident gymnast.

The seniors said every SEC meet is a rivalry, but they know this one with Georgia is just a little bit different. The two programs have combined for 16 national championships and more than 20 SEC championships.

“Any SEC meet is going to be an awesome rivalry meet – however, with it being Georgia, we know that the stakes are pretty high,” Mahoney said. “Our senior class is undefeated against Georgia in all of our meets, but that’s always been an exciting week for us every year. We’re just gonna focus on being in the Bama bubble and just enjoy every minute.”

The seniors will take the floor one final time at Coleman Coliseum on Saturday at 7:15 p.m as they look to move their career regular-season record to 4-0 against Georgia.