Coming off of last week’s loss at home against No. 2 Florida, the No. 20 Missouri gymnastics squad (1-4),(0-3) SEC headed on the road to take on another Top 25 SEC matchup No. 14 Auburn (2-1). At Auburn Arena, Missouri saw its best performance yet of the season despite being outlasted in a final of 196.700-196.650.
“We did a nice job from rebounding from last week,” coach Shannon Welker said in a release. “We had a nice solid start on bars, still need to stick a few more dismounts, but we went 49.2-plus and only stuck one dismount, so that gives me a lot of optimism.“
In its first rotation, the Missouri gymnasts opened the meet with a 49.225 on bars. It was a season-best and the highest score for the team since a 49.275 event against Florida on March 3, 2018. Leading the pack on bars was senior Aspen Tucker and redshirt senior Morgan Porter with a pair of 9.85s. This performance was followed by junior Chelsey Christensen and sophomore Alisa Sheremeta both with 9.8s on the event.
The visiting Missouri squad continued to make its presence felt in Auburn during the second rotation vaulting their way to a score of 49.300. The team had three career-bests in the rotation with 9.9s from sophomore Hannah McCrary and freshman Sienna Schreiber and a 9.85 from freshman Kambrie Brandt. This proved to be the best rotation for the squad throughout the meet.
“On vault, I think that was our best round since I’ve been here at Mizzou,” Welker said. “We put up three 10.0 vaults and they all did a nice job. I knew we had it in us and we finally put it all together.”
Mistakes started to seep through for Missouri on the front and back end of the floor performance causing a regroup to take place before the final event of the meet. Despite some errors, Porter won first on the event with a 9.9, contributing to her all-around score of 39.425, another winning effort from the senior in this meet. Another top performer of the evening was freshman Helen Hu who won a title in both the bars (9.925) and beam (9.95) events.
“After floor we gathered and said let’s make this last event our best event of the night,” Welker said.“They responded so well with our highest beam score of the year. Overall we had lots of good stuff and I hope the fans come out and see us next weekend.”
Missouri will head back home to the Hearnes Center to host Arkansas on Friday, Jan. 31 for the annual Pink Out meet at 6 p.m. CST.
_Edited by Wilson Moore | wmoore@themaneater.com_