Power of Pink Pushes No. 3 Alabama to New Season High in Win over No. 8 Arkansas

On a night with a meaning bigger than gymnastics, the Crimson Tide put up a 197.950 to win the Power of Pink meet.

Chloe LaCoursiere performs her beam routine in the meet against Arkansas on Feb. 13, 2026. | Sarah Munzenmaier/Alabama Crimson Tide on SI

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Despite being a top-five team in the country, Ashley Johnston wasn't satisfied with where her team was. Alabama was consistently scoring in the mid-197 range, but she knew her team had more in the tank as it enters the back half of the regular season.

And on a night with a meaning bigger than gymnastics honoring breast cancer survivors and fighters, No. 3 Alabama put together its most complete performance of the season as the Crimson Tide beat No. 8 Arkansas 197.950-196.900 in the Power of Pink meet inside Coleman Coliseum on Friday night. The total bested Alabama's previous best of 197.500 by over four tenths.

"It was really a magical night," Johnston said after the meet. "I think what I most proud of is how our team handled adversity throughout this week. We we had our fair share of sickness and some different uncharacteristic things that came up on top of having a couple of weird mistakes during the meet, and we really never let it faze us."

Anchored by a 9.975 from senior Gabby Gladieux, Alabama continued to show why it is one of the best floor teams in the country. Even with an uncharacteristic mistake from junior Jamison Sears, the Tide still posted a 49.550 on the floor exercise, its highest score of any event.

Vault has consistently been Alabama's lowest-scoring event of the season, and Johnston is always looking to start strong. That hasn't been the case in the Crimson Tide's previous home meets. With the insertion of freshman McKenzie Matters in the lineup, who scored a 9.925 on her front pike half. Fellow freshman Azaraya Ra-Akbar stuck her Yurchenko 1.5 for the second week in a row and earned a 9.975 to push the Tide to a season high 49.500 on vault.

The final place in the vault lineup came down to three freshman according to Johnston: Matters, Jasmine Cawley and Noella Marshall. Cawley stuck her vault in warmup, but Matters had a "little extra fire" in the way she was warming up.

"Tonight was Kenzie's moment to step in and do her thing, and that was that was huge, because to build vault depth, to build scoring potential, like that, is everything," Johnston said. "I think depth is really the final determiner of how close we can be to a national championship. So those little moments are big. Those are breakthroughs, and we're going to continue to try to develop those across all four events."

Sticky feet in her career debut!!! 9.925 for the freshman!!

📺 SEC Network+#RollTide pic.twitter.com/zOFsf0Ps8Y

— Alabama Gymnastics (@BamaGymnastics) February 14, 2026

It was a night of season highs all around as Alabama tied its best beam score with a 49.425. The Tide had more stuck dismounts, and Gladieux, Cawley and Chloe LaCoursiere all scored 9.9s on beam.

"What we did this week was put in a lot of work," LaCoursiere said after the meet. "We knew that we're all playing our own game, and that goes into one big game that we're going to win together. So each staying on our task, on our mission, and then doing our jobs."

Gladieux won the all-around with a 39.600, and LaCoursiere came in second with a new career best 39.500.

Alabama came into the meet as the No. 1 uneven bars team in the nation, and the fact that its taking this long to recap the bars rotation shows how strong the rest of the meet was for the Crimson Tide. LaCoursiere and Ra-Akbar are two of the best bars workers in the country, and they closed out Alabama's rotation with back-to-back 9.95s. LaCoursiere has not scored below a 9.925 on the event this season, and Ra-Akbar has only scored below a 9.9 twice.

Azaaaaaaaa - 9.950 for our rookie 😌

📺 SEC Network+#RollTide pic.twitter.com/wXuKS68fdm

— Alabama Gymnastics (@BamaGymnastics) February 14, 2026

Next up for the Crimson Tide is a rivalry road trip down to Auburn on Feb. 20.

"We were really focused and mission driven, but we had a lot of fun tonight," Johnston said. "That's the recipe for this team, and we're going to continue to find that blend as we go into this next phase of the season. So overall, huge step in a really exciting direction, and hungry for more."