Kentucky Earns Top-Four Seed at SEC Championships

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Since the Southeastern Conference Gymnastics Championships went to two sessions, the same four teams – Alabama, Florida, Georgia and LSU – have earned the top seeds in the championship event. This year, after finishing fourth in the SEC with a regional qualifying score of 196.800, Kentucky will join the evening session for the first time in program history.
 
The evening session of the championships will take place at 7 p.m. ET on March 24 inside Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis. The meet will be shown in its entirety on ESPN2 and UK will be joined in the session by LSU, Florida and Alabama. Arkansas, Auburn, Georgia and Missouri will compete at 3 p.m. ET on SEC Network in the first session.
 
“Qualifying to the evening session of the SEC Championship is a major accomplishment and brings into sharp focus how special this team is,” head coach Tim Garrison said. “From day one they accepted challenges and accomplished goal after goal throughout the season. After 11 meets in 10 weeks, I would expect them to be showing signs of fatigue. Instead, they are just as motivated and working every bit as hard as they were on day one. As one of our trainers put it today, “Wow the energy in here is palpable!” Again, this is a special group and I can’t wait to be part of the upcoming championship and postseason with them.”
 
Junior Sidney Dukes knows how hard the team has worked for this.
 
“It’s an unreal feeling, the team has work so hard for this and it’s finally showing,” Dukes said. “I know when I came to Kentucky that the program was on the rise, and this shows that our team is unstoppable when we dedicate ourselves in and out of the gym.”
 
As the four seed, Kentucky will start on the floor, and rotate to the vault and bars before finishing on the beam. Last season, Alex Hyland won an SEC Championship on the beam after earning a 9.95.
 
“It feels so great to be on this team and we have put in so much work this season,” Hyland said. “I’m so glad to see it pay off. We are excited to be in the second session because we have proven ourselves to be the best of the best. We can’t wait to show what we’ve got.”
 
Last season at the SEC Championships, Kentucky finished with its highest score in the event in program history, a 196.625. Kentucky did not score below a 49.000 on any event, and went 49.325 on the beam.

To purchase tickets for the 2018 Gymnastics Championship, please visit www.secticketoffice.com.
 

 
Session One – 2 p.m. CT

 
 
Session Two – 6 p.m. CT