No. 6 Texas A&M visits No. 1 Baylor in the hunt for its first road win. Rivals before A&M’s move to the SEC, the schools will meet at 10 a.m. Saturday for the first time since 2012.
The Aggies completed a sweep in last weekend’s double-header. They beat out unranked Delaware State 13-2 on Friday and followed with a dominating 12-3 victory over No. 10 New Mexico State. The Aggies stepped right over the competition, climbing from No. 8 to No. 6 in the nation.
“I think we had some really great rides,” said head coach Tana McKay. “We put out some really tough, national-quality rides over the weekend. We’re in our comfort zone, too, so this is all preparation winding down to the postseason.”
The never-ending task of recruitment has the Aggies looking into the future. With most recruiting is done in the fall, the Aggies have only some unofficial visits this week. The brand new facilities should continue to attract new prospects.
“I think it’s going to be one of our strongest classes in a while in all four events,” said McKay. “Recruiting gets tougher and tougher every year, but I think the talent get deeper and deeper for the kids coming up. There are kids now that have been getting ready to ride in college now that it’s been around so long.”
The women did not skip a beat from last semester and look to carry the momentum to Waco. The undefeated Bears come into the competition with two November riders of the month, senior equitation on the flat rider Samantha Schaefer and freshman equitation over fences rider Brittney Mirkov. Many changes have taken place in the three years since the teams have met.
“Baylor obviously has a tough team so we have our work cut out for us,” McKay said. “We’ll see a lot of new horses we haven’t seen before, a new atmosphere, different arenas, and it’ll completely change things up for the girls. Any time you can take down the No. 1 ranked team is awesome, especially on their home turf. There’s a huge home field advantage in our sport so it speaks volumes if you can get that done. On top of that, the fact that we haven’t been there, it’s kind of an old Big 12 rivalry.”