The No. 2 ranked Texas A&M equestrian team will travel to Stillwater, Okla., for the first Big 12 Championship this weekend.
There are four teams competing in the championship including A&M (8-3), No. 7 Oklahoma State (7-5), No. 3 Baylor (10-3) and No. 9 Kansas State (5-8).
After sweeping the season series between Oklahoma State and Kansas State, the Aggies earned a two-seed in the championship and will face No. 3-seeded Oklahoma State in the first round.
“Obviously Oklahoma State is going to be favored because they are using a lot of their own horses,” said senior hunter seat rider Erin Ivy.
Baylor is the top seed and will face No. 4-seeded Kansas State in the semi-finals. Baylor handed the Aggies two of their three loses this season, which had never happened in school history.
“We started the year off in a bit of a slump and we gradually bonded,” said junior captain and western rider Lindsay Smith. “As we did that, we really grew as a team and right now we are at the point where it is just such a great bond and that is the best time you need it when you are going into postseason.”
This will be the first Big 12 Championship for the Aggies. The previous two conference championships were known as the Central Championship. The Aggies won the first Central Championship in College Station in 2007 and Oklahoma State won in 2008 at Kansas State.
“Baylor had pulled an upset on us at the Central Championship last year,” said horsemanship coach Beth Bass. “We were seeded No. 1 and we lost to the No. 4-seed Baylor. Previous to that, we had never lost to Baylor in postseason or regular season.”
After winning their first five competitions and losing the next three, the Aggies have won three straight and are coming off their largest win of the season after beating No. 10 New Mexico State 15-5 in Las Cruces two weeks ago.
“We have had some ups and downs throughout the season, but I think they have learned and have been able to grow from both the positive things that have happened to them and from the negative things they have experienced from their shows,” said hunter seat coach Linzy Woolf.