Auburn Equestrian Gets Revenge Over Georgia in SEC Tournament Semifinal

The Auburn Tigers rebounded from their loss suffered to the Bulldogs three weeks ago with a 12 to 7 win.

Author:
Auburn Elvis
Publish date:
Mar 25, 2022 9:43 PM EDT

For the past few seasons, Auburn Equestrian has been so much better than the rest of the field, even a set of good rides from the Tigers could beat most teams’ set of great ones.

This year’s team isn’t so supremely talented. Three times this season, Auburn has ended their day with a collection of good rides, only to lose to an opponent that brought their best performances.

In today’s SEC Tournament semifinal, Auburn was good but not great, but so was Georgia.

How the Meet Went

The meet began with Equitation on the Flat, an event that Georgia edged Auburn in points three weeks ago. On Friday, the Tigers took the event 3-2, starting off the meet with the one-point lead.

Next up was the event in which Auburn’s been the strongest all year, Horsemanship. It’s not unusual for them to win four, or even all 5 of the available points in this event. Today, mistakes meant the Tigers would only win the event 3-2.

This created a 6-4 halftime lead, but the door was still open for a possible comeback if Georgia could go mostly mistake-free the rest of the way.

Spoiler: They didn’t

In the second half, the Tigers put together a nice set of scores in Fences that, coupled with Bulldog mistakes, delivered the event 3-1 for Auburn.

Keep in mind that equestrian meets are best-of-twenty contests, so going into the final event Auburn just needed one more point to guarantee victory.

It’s also worth noting that this event, Reining, has been Auburn’s Achilles heel in every loss this season. So with Auburn just one point away from victory, there was still hope among the hundred-or-so Georgia fans in attendance that they could steal a win.

But Auburn’s Reining squad was up to the task at hand, riding good-but-not-great, taking three of the event’s five points, and winning the meet 12 to 7.

Fifth-Year Seniors Green and Searles Shine in Both Western Events

Five years ago, best friends Deanna Green and Taylor Searles decided to join the Auburn equestrian program. Since then, the duo has provided constant fuel for Auburn’s run of dominance.

Today, each won her pair of points in Horsemanship and Reining, staving off the Georgia comeback.

Auburn Advances to Saturday’s SEC Championship

In the day’s earlier semifinal, 1-seed Texas A&M defeated South Carolina 12-7.

The Tigers and the Aggies split their regular season meets, with each team winning at home.

Auburn hopes the home crowd atmosphere, and the stakes of another SEC title, bring out their best, spurring them to victory.

Championship Projections

After a review of each teams’ performance this season, I think Auburn seems to have a higher ceiling of talent on their roster than Texas A&M.

The Tigers have at least a pair of All-American and/ or All-SEC riders in every event.

Conversely, A&M doesn’t have as many superstars as Auburn, but the Aggies enjoy a deep roster that doesn’t see much performance dropoff between its best and worst starters.

So I expect the meet will hinge on each team’s ability to limit mistakes, and turn-in great rides, over good ones.

If Auburn can do that, the trees at Toomer’s Corner will probably be wearing the fragile strings of victory, so common after important Auburn wins.