The No. 2 Texas A&M Equestrian team came from behind and beat the No. 3 Auburn Tigers in a 9-9 tie breaker at the Hildebrand Equine Complex Friday. The Aggies (6-1-1, SEC 2-1) headed into the match up coming off huge win last week against No. 7 TCU, while the Tigers 2-1, (SEC 0-1) are coming off a blowout win against the Baylor.
“We are excited to close out our home portion of the fall schedule against another very good team; we competed well against a tough TCU team last week and we have had some good practices this week,” Texas A&M head coach Tanya McKay said to 12thman.com “As we get closer to the midway point of our season, our goal is to improve each week and I think we have done that.”
The Aggies got things started quickly, in the first event Equation over Fences, as sophomore Caroline Dance racked the first point of the match with an 84-77 win. Next up, were collective efforts from Senior Rachel Hake who got an 82-81 win and then the event concluded with a win from senior Alex Desiderio 77-72. Dance earned Most Outstanding Player for the event, which was the first of her career.
The next event was Horsemanship in which A&M went up 7-3 after help from freshman Alex Albright who got the win 71.5-70.5. The Aggies took the rest of the event 4-1 when junior Sarah Orsak got the victory 72-71, and then Avery Ellis knocked out the event with win 74-67. Senior Bailey Cook earned her second straight Most Outstanding Player award as she won out in a battle 75-74.5.
In Equitation on the Flat, the Tigers came back in dramatic fashion by winning the event 3-1. Junior Rebekah Chenelle was lone Aggie to scrape away a point in the event with a 74-65 win.
In the days final event of Western Arena, Auburn would not go down without a fight as they knocked out three straight points to tie the match 9-9. Junior Haley Franc was the only A&M victory to come out of the event as she came out with the shutout 66.5-0. In the final ride of the day, Aggie sophomore Darby Gardner matched Auburn’s Alexa Rivard at 70.5 to force a tiebreaker. The A&M came out ahead to final the match 1520-1335.5
“This was a big win for us. It came down to the wire like it has a number of times between us and Auburn, so I expected nothing less,” McKay said to 12thman.com “They were great competitors. We made a couple of mistakes, but overall as a whole, the team pulled each other up like they are supposed to. It worked out in our favor.”
The No. 2 Aggies return to riding in two weeks at No. 6 Oklahoma State. The match is set to start at 10 a.m. in Totusek Arena in Stillwater Oklahoma.