AUBURN, Ala. - Paced by a season best vault score, Alabama scored a season best 196.175 to beat Auburn here in Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum tonight.

Alabama goes to 9-0-0 overall and 2-0-0 in the Southeastern Conference while Auburn after scoring a 194.450, goes to 2-6 and 0-2. The Crimson Tide extended its 27-year year winning streak against Auburn.

"Beating the Auburn Tigers never gets old, even after 27 years," Alabama head coach Sarah Patterson said. "The pressure and the magnitude of this event never ceases to amaze me. Auburn had everything to gain tonight and we had everything to lose. But I saw our team grow and mature in front of my eyes tonight and that is very gratifying. We've had a couple of rough days and we juggled the lineup and we moved forward, and for that, I am grateful."

Salto is pinch-hitting for PBA2 who was neck-deep in a Medalist Club newsletter, to bring you the post-meet commentary with a whimsical twist here and there. Enjoy!

FUN! FUN! FUN!
GymTide fans, make your plans to attend the Perfect-10 Grand Gala Drawdown on Saturday, February 11th at 7:00 p.m. Your $100 ticket entitles you and a guest to a great night of fun, food, and fellowship; raises money for the Postgraduate Scholarship Fund; and provides the holder of the winning ticket a grand prize of $10,000!

The Alabama Gymnastics team moved up to No. 3 in the national rankings after beating Florida last Friday night.

The rankings, calculated by average score, have Georgia at No. 1 followed by Utah. Alabama is third with a 195.392 season average through its first three meets. Michigan falls from third to fourth and Florida jumps from eighth last week to fifth. Stanford, Penn State, Oklahoma, UCLA and Missouri round out the top-10.

After the Crimson Tide's home opener against the Gators, where a Southeastern Conference record 15,162 fans were in attendance, Alabama returns to the road Friday to face No. 17 Auburn. It marks the Tide's third of four road meet to start the season off. The Crimson Tide still owns the highest score in the nation this season, a 196.150 against Penn State.

We have a new "Chalk Talk" from Coach Patterson:

• Chalk talk - The Power of Pink

We have updated the audio for the Penn State Meet. Included are the missing Post Meet interviews.

• Complete Radio Broadcast of the Penn State Meet.

Looking for all those cool images we've been using on our front page? Well we haven't tossed them out. In fact, we've now got a page with all of them including complete descriptive captions right here:

• Updated Front Page Image Archives

The Alabama Gymnastics team, in front a sold-out house and a sea of pink, beat the Florida Gators 195.775-194.625 here in Coleman Coliseum.

It marked the first time the newly renovated Coliseum, which re-opened this fall, has been sold out. It also marked the second time the gymnastics program has sold the arena out with the first time coming against Georgia in 1997. The Coliseum's capacity for a gymnastics meet is actually 14,823, but tonight's crowd was a Southeastern Conference and Alabama record 15,162, including 339 standing room only tickets.

The total was the third largest collegiate gymnastics crowd ever and the largest since Utah and Boise State drew 15,168 in 1993. Alabama owns two of the five largest crowds of all time, including a then capacity of 15,043 fans on Feb. 1, 1997.

The Alabama Gymnastics team's "Drive 4 the Cure" meet against the Florida Gators will be broadcast live and free at www.CrimsonTradition.com Friday (Jan. 20) night starting at 7:30 p.m.

CrimsonTradition.com is the premium web site for the Alabama athletics department, providing exclusive video content, historical perspective, and exclusive inside news and complete information for all of the Crimson Tide's programs.

And for Friday night, the site will stream the Tide's meet against the Gators for free. It will be Alabama's home opener and its annual "Power of Pink" meet. Both teams are putting aside their school colors and wearing pink leotards to raise awareness and money for the fight against breast cancer. For more on the Tide's "Power of Pink" initiative, go to www.rolltide.com/pink/ on the web.

The Alabama Crimson Tide Gymnastics Team and almost 100 partisan Bama fans headed for snowy State College, Pennsylvania this past Saturday night to watch the gymnasts notch another victory in the young 2006 season. Standout performances were plentiful and the Tide came away with the season's highest score to date in Division I, a 196.150. Let's hit the highlights...

The best of the best will be wearing pink on Friday.

In rankings released today, Alabama Gymnastics, on the strength of a 196.150 against Penn State and Arizona this weekend in State College, Pa., is No. 1 while this Friday's opponent, the Florida Gators, stand at No. 2.

Both teams are putting aside their traditional colors to wear pink leotards to help support the night's "Drive 4 the Cure" theme. In addition to pitting the nation's top two teams against one another, is dedicated to raising awareness for the fight against breast cancer.

We have a Partial Radio Broadcast of the Penn State Meet. (Some of the post-meet interviews are missing)

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA - Alabama Gymnastics coach Sarah Patterson predicted that her team would make rapid improvement after last week's season opener and the Crimson Tide proved her right here tonight.

"Things didn't go perfectly for us tonight," Patterson said. "But I think what we learned from tonight will be invaluable for us down the road and will serve to make us a better team. We had great team work, we had enthusiasm and we saw great leadership from a few of our veterans. We also saw the determination and enthusiasm from our freshmen that are going to help us contend in the future."

Alabama scored a 196.15, nearly two points better than last week's Super 6 Challenge score, beating Penn State, 194.875 and Arizona, 194.35. Patterson and company go to 7-0 on the season heading into next week's home opener.

"The GymTide had several goals in mind for the season-opening Super Six Challenge. Among them: to set a 'baseline' for the season, against which the team's improvement in the weeks to come may be measured; to start the annual process of getting a feel for rule changes; to get their large freshman class some experience, especially in a 'National finals-like' setting; to win the meet, of course; but, most importantly, to return to Tuscaloosa with just as many healthy gymnasts as they took to Baton Rouge."

"Goals met, goals exceeded."

[ More... ]

A week after winning the Super 6 Challenge in Baton Rouge to open the season, Alabama Gymnastics is back on the road facing Penn State and Arizona Saturday, Jan. 14 in Happy Valley, Pa.

Coach Sarah Patterson is looking for some marked improvement from her young squad after last week's 5-0 start.

"Last week we found our starting point at the Super 6 Challenge," Patterson said. "And now we are moving forward from there. I'll be excited to see how far we've come in a week. We were at a point in the season where we weren't going to get any better until we got into competition. Now we're moving forward."

Wow! We have Complete Radio Brodcast of the 2006 Super Six Challenge!

We have a brand spanking new Photo album (and a slide show) for the 2006 Super Six Challenge.

• Photo Album: 2006 Super Six Challenge
• Slide Show: 2006 Super Six Challenge

Here are a few of the Photos:
(Click on a thumbnail to view a full size picture)

207091 bytes 01.Cassie Martin bars wu

228728 bytes 02.Courtney Priess bars wu

219172 bytes 03.Dana Filetti bars wu

Fans, time is quickly running out on your chance to sign up for the new Coleman Coliseum Club Room pre-meet festivities. The cost for the season is $75 per adult and $50 per child, which gets you access to food and drinks beginning 90 minutes before the start of each home meet. In addition, between 45 and 60 minutes before the meet, a special 'Chalk Talk' session will be held where team updates and meet information will be provided. Time is short, don't be shut out! You can download and print a copy of the Official Club Room Application here. Don't forget that recent postage increase! Roll Tide!!!

• Official Club Room Application (Adobe Acrobat pdf format )

We've got this season's preliminary TV Schedule for viewing meets.

• 2006 TV Schedule

The 2006 edition of the Alabama Gymnastics Team showcased their youth and firepower in Baton Rouge last Friday Night, coming away with a victory over five teams in the Top 16, including home-standing LSU. The Tide coaches took this opportunity right out of the chute to showcase their heralded freshman class and expose them to the high-charged atmosphere of a six team-competition format. They successfully passed muster and showed the upper class that they were ready to take on the challenge of college competition. Scoring was tight on three of four events (exception, uneven bars scoring later in the competition) and the Tide will look to polish up some technical and form errors before heading to Happy Valley, Pennsylvania this next weekend to take on the Nittany Lions and the Arizona Wildcats. For now, let's review some of the highlights from the January 6th meet...

The Alabama Gymnastics team is fifth in the first rankings of the 2006 season after winning the Super 6 Challenge in Baton Rouge, La. on Friday.

The Florida Gators, Alabama's opponent for its home opener on Friday, Jan. 20, is currently ranked No. 1, followed by Georgia, Stanford and Utah. The top four teams from the Super Six Challenge are ranked 5-8, with Alabama at No. 5, followed by No. 6 Nebraska, No. 7 Iowa State and No. 8 LSU. UCLA and Denver round out the top-10, tied for ninth.

The Crimson Tide is tied for the No. 1 spot on the vault with Florida. Both squads produced 49.050 scores in their first meet. Alabama is led on the vault by the nation's No. 1 vaulter, senior Ashley Miles, a two-time NCAA vault champion.

• Rankings
• Individual Top Scores
• SEC Report
• TopTen Report

The Alabama Gymnastics team, with a lineup full of freshmen, won its fourth Super Six Challenge crown in the last seven years, posting a 194.250.

"As always this is a great competition," head coach Sarah Patterson said. "And for a freshman dominated team, it well serves the purpose of putting us on the first night of competition where we want to be on the last night of the season and that is in the Super Six with the opportunity to compete for a championship."

Nebraska took second with a 194.100, followed closely by Iowa State in third with a 194.050. Homestanding LSU was fourth with a 193.900 followed by Auburn, 193.675 and Missouri, 192.700.

For the Alabama Gymnastics team the 2006 season starts on the same event it started 2005 on and at the same meet as well.

For the second year in a row, Alabama opens up the season on the uneven bars the Tide learned today at the rotation draw during the practice day for the 2006 Super Six Challenge. And for the seventh year in a row, the Tide opens the season at the Challenge. It also marks the seventh year Alabama has started things off with a televised meet. ESPN2 will broadcast the Challenge on a tape-delay basis on Jan. 15 at 1:30 p.m. Alabama is the only school to compete in all seven Super Six Challenges.

"This is a very good meet to start with, especially with eight freshmen," head coach Sarah Patterson, starting her 28th season, said. "This meet is set up just like the NCAA team finals. We are starting off just like we want to finish off. It's good experience."

We have a new "Chalk Talk" from Coach Patterson:

• Chalk talk - 1/4/2006

Sporting an amazing consistency when it comes to success doesn't change the fact that no two years are the same when it comes to the Alabama Gymnastics Team, and that is especially true in a year when half its roster is made up of rookies.

Coming off its 10th NCAA top-2 finish, Alabama returns two NCAA Champions with four titles between them, four All-Americans with 16 honors among them and eight veterans in all. Added to the mix is the largest rookie class in school history, eight strong and ready to step up for the Tide.

"Our ultimate goals never change," head coach Sarah Patterson said. "We want to do well in every aspect of the program. Whether it is in the gym, in the classroom or out in the community, we want to do our absolute best. And of course our goal is to be on the floor the last night of the national championships with a chance to win."

Happy New Year to all Bama fans around the globe! Here is the final practice report before the kick-off of the 2006 season in Baton Rouge this Friday night. The team went through a tough, extended work-out on this date after cheering the football team to victory in the Cotton Bowl earlier in the day. Here are some of the highlights and projected line-ups for each event at the Super Six Challenge