Well, it wasn't exactly WWF but the crowd was treated to some spectacular acrobatic feats as the Alabama Crimson Tide Gymnastics Team performed another decisive take down move over the Auburn Tigers.  Bama earned their highest score of the young season (197.250) and moved up to a third place ranking nationally, as well as a first place ranking on the uneven bars and floor exercise.  In addition, the Tide now ranks third nationally on vault and eighth on balance beam.

As the host team this year for the Birmingham Meet, Alabama started off in Olympic Rotation Order (vault, bars, beam, floor).  Nifty front pikes were thrown by sophomore Lauren Holdefer (9.70, one step on the landing), freshman Shannon Hrozek (9.75, limited distance from the horse, one small foot check), and sophomore Erin Holdefer (9.825, nailed the landing, great distance).  Returning to the line-up after serving a two-week suspension, sophomore Jeana Rice threw a very nice Yurchenko full with one hop backwards (9.825). What happened next left Tide fans gasping with dismay. During her vault run, junior Kristin Sterner appeared to miss her hands on the horse and then sort of lost where she was in the air once she did not have adequate repulsion off the horse, resulting in her tucking the vault and landing chest down on the mats.  She recovered with assistance from the trainers and coaches and thankfully was diagnosed with no more than an ankle sprain.  She was in fine spirits after icing her ankle and rotated with her teammates for the remainder of the meet.  Kristin's final vault score was an 8.950, which was dropped after senior Andree Pickens performed another electrifying Yurchenko full for a 9.90.  Stephanie Kite performed an exhibition front pike and landed it forward and low.  Team score on vault: 49.00.  The Tigers of Auburn were able to muster a 48.800 on the uneven bars, highlighted by fifth year senior, Sally Cantrell's 9.85 performance.

During the second rotation, Alabama was determined to improve their team score on the uneven bars after a sub-par performance Friday night in Baton Rouge (49.100). Since Kristin Sterner was finished for the evening, Coach Patterson had to shift the line-up a bit and chose to start Shannon Hrozek.  She performed bravely but missed a few handstands and took a slight balance step on her landing of the front tuck out of a full turn (9.675).  Jeana Rice had minor deductions for flexed feet during her low bar transition and slightly loose form on one of her giant up-rises, but landed the full in dismount with a small one foot balance check (9.825).  Sophomore Tiffany Byrd was super-focused on hitting her handstand positions and threw a very nice Tkatchev release.  She was deducted mainly for the balance check on her landing of a double tuck (9.825).  Enter senior Raegan Tomasek with a wonderful Jaeger release, beautiful handstands, giant work and a stuck double front dismount (chest high as well), earning her a 9.95 from the judges.  This fueled Andree Pickens to go for those handstand positions as well (the four release moves are a piece of cake) and once she stuck the full in dismount chest high (with incredible distance as well), the judges collectively anointed her with a 10.00.  Senior Natalie Barrington punctuated this with a fine 9.90 performance, no obvious deductions observed until she landed her double tuck with a deep bending of the knees on impact.  Junior Sara Scarborough exhibited on the bars, throwing a Geinger release move and dismounting with a double tuck that was way over-rotated (landed forward and touched down her hands and knees).  Alabama had a team score of 49.500 on the uneven bars, a running score of 98.500.  Auburn was paced by Hannah Littrell (9.85) and Kristi Boyte (9.75) on the vault, where they achieved a team score of 48.625 and a running score of 97.425.

With a comfortable lead, the Tide was able to relax and concentrate on achieving a team personal best on the balance beam.  Raegan Tomasek started off with a beautiful punch front mount, a flight series of back handspring to layout, a beautiful switch leap to two straddle jumps to a wolf jump combination (9.875).  Tiffany Byrd had one of her strongest beam performances (9.75) in terms of execution of difficult skills and the flow of her dance moves.  Natalie Barrington fell on the third element of her flight series (layout) and was a little awkward in the execution of her leap combination (9.225).  Senior Alexa Martinez was thus placed in the pressure cooker and responded with her best routine of the year (9.825), highlighted by gorgeous extension on her straddle jump combination, her straddle and wolf Popas, and her flight series of a back handspring to layout. We felt this routine was underscored. Jeana Rice responded in kind with a super 9.875 (two layout flight series, standing back gainer, wolf Popa, straddle to wolf combination jump, double twist dismount), and Andree Pickens put the icing on the cake with a 9.925 (including a stuck double tuck dismount).  Freshman Shannon Hrozek then exhibited a very nice beam routine of her own. Alabama had a team total of 49.250 on the beam and a running score of 147.750 at this juncture, leading by 2.65 over Auburn. Meanwhile, the Tigers were experiencing difficulty with their first (9.150) and sixth (9.300) performers on the floor exercise but nice routines by senior Terri Brannan (9.825) and Hannah Littrell (9.80) resulted in a team score of 48.425 and a running score of 145.100. 

Finishing up on another strong event, the Crimson Tide again had to shuffle the line-up for floor exercise, choosing to rest Raegan Tomasek and Jeana Rice along with the side-lined Kristin Sterner.  Lauren Holdefer started things off with a bang (a high double tuck) but for the second week in a row, she misjudged her double pike (second pass) and sat it down and out of bounds (automatic .5 for the fall, .1 for going out of bounds).  She had some form deductions on the final pass as well (seemed to run out of steam a bit) and received a 9.050.  Up next, Shannon Hrozek performed like a veteran in the hot seat, throwing her opening pass of a double pike with great height and landing it decisively.  Her second pass was a round off to whip half to front layout to front tuck, her final pass a double twist (9.90), with dynamic dancing in between (double turn to straddle Popa).  Alexa Martinez was hoping to match or better this score but again encountered some difficulty on her opening pass of a front through to a double twist (landed deep and forward) but her remaining three passes, along with dance and interpretation of the music resulted in a 9.800 from the judges.  Just think what she will score when she nails all four passes!  Tiny freshman Michelle Reeser rocked the house next with her dynamic routine (opening pass of a double pike, second pass of a front handspring to front layout to front with a half twist to a layout stepout, finishing with a front handspring to front layout to front tuck) for a 9.975 and Stephanie Kite (9.875) and Alexis Brion (9.95) shut the door on the Tigers with excellent tumbling of their own.  The Tide finished up on floor with a 49.500 and a final score of 197.250.  The Tigers struggled on balance beam and had to count a fall but Sally Cantrell was able to garner a 9.825 for a very fluid, confident performance.  The Tigers finished with a 47.675 on beam and a final total score of 193.525.