The No. 3 Texas A&M equestrian team will host No. 6 Baylor at the Hildebrand Equine Center on Saturday. The Aggies have a 8-4 season record and are 3-2 in Southeastern Conference play.
Baylor is 4-3 on the season with a 2-1 conference record. The Bears are coming off a 10-7 win over Texas Christian University on Feb. 10.
“There is a comfort factor of being here and riding our own horses but it still is a big test to take on to host a meet,” head coach Tana McKay said. “There’s so much other things going on that sometimes it’s hard to stay focused, so those starters that have just been in there, finding that focus, finding that drive, and just executing some flawless patterns and tests.”
The Aggies go into this meet looking to rebound from last Saturday’s 11-7 loss to No. 2 Auburn.
“Anytime you come off of a loss, you’re going to sit down and really dissect what went well, what didn’t go well,” McKay said. “I’m hoping to clean up some of the errors that we kind of keep making.”
Despite the loss, McKay is proud of her upperclassmen for stepping up to lead the team.
Senior Avery Ellis earned the Aggies’ sole Most Outstanding Player honors after she bested Auburn’s Deanna Green 75.5-72.5 in Horsemanship in the highest scoring ride of the day.
“We saw some really good leadership from our upperclassmen because Auburn is just a tough place to go to,” McKay said. “I felt like the team was prepared to go into that atmosphere. It was definitely home field advantage just being at their house and obviously on their horses, so I was proud of our upperclassmen and how they tried to get everybody prepared.”
McKay said the loss has made her team more determined to win.
“We’ve had some really good practices knowing we had a short turnaround here coming into our home Baylor meet,” McKay said. “It’s never easy taking a loss, but I think it’s just making these girls work harder.”
The meet is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. in College Station, Texas.
