Heading into No. 4 Florida’s meet against No. 16 Auburn, UF coach Rhonda Faehn wanted her team to score well on the road and eclipse the 195.475 it scored at N.C. State.
Friday night in Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum, the Gators (6-2, 5-1 Southeastern Conference) did just that, as they beat Auburn (2-5, 2-4 SEC), 196.800-195.700.
“Typically we don’t have strong competitions when we travel to Auburn, but we came through with a big win,” Faehn said. “We’re definitely happy we get to replace that N.C. State total.”
The score was Florida’s best output on the road, and its second-best performance of the season behind last week’s score against rival Georgia.
As close as the teams’ last four meetings in Auburn have been — all being decided by half a point or less — Friday’s meet was all Florida from the start.
In the first rotation, sophomore Elizabeth Mahlich and seniors Maranda Smith and Amanda Castillo all registered 9.875s en route to the team’s best bar score of the season.
The three gymnasts shared the event title on bars, and helped Florida establish a .525 point advantage early on.
But that was as close as the meet would get.
“I thought overall the team did a really great job as far as starting out strong on bars and carrying that momentum and energy throughout the competition,” Faehn said.
Florida came away with team victories in each event, and swept the individual honors for the meet, including a vault title and a share of the beam title for senior Courtney Gladys, who scored season-highs of 9.9 and 9.85, respectively.
“Courtney was just awesome tonight,” Faehn said. “She nailed her vault landing. She didn’t move and stuck it. Her beam was gorgeous and it speaks volumes of her hard work in practice to not have one wobble and stick her dismount.”
It marked the second time in her career — and this season — that Gladys won multiple event titles in a meet.
“I’ve been working on my landings on vault and focusing on my consistency and technique on beam,” Gladys said. “It’s great to know my hard work paid off.”
Freshman Ashanée Dickerson performed well again, earning her fifth all-around title of the season and second in a row.
“She’s a machine,” Faehn said. “She’s just so calm and confident.”
Dickerson also performed one of her best floor routines of the year, even though her 9.875 wasn’t her best score of the season. Faehn said despite that, Dickerson still earned the highest floor score of the meet, and it showed the judges valued her routine.
The team’s performance allowed it to finish off its SEC regular season schedule on a high note before closing out the year with two non-conference competitions.
“Our conference is so strong, and it’s so difficult and challenging,” Faehn said. “Looking at our SEC portion of the season it was very strong. We had that one loss at Alabama, and that’s it. We’re just happy to be done on the road.”
Internet reports contributed to this story.
