FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas travels to St. Louis, Missouri on Saturday for the Southeastern Conference Championships.
The Razorbacks are the fifth seed, and will compete in the first session of tomorrow’s championships, beginning at 2 p.m.
Arkansas Event RQS (National Ranking)
Vault– 49.055 (23)
Bars– 49.340 (6)
Beam– 49.270 (10)
Floor– 49.260 (17)
“We’ve been really, really, strong on three events,” said assistant coach Jaime Armbrust. “We’re working on some depth on vault, but the other three events have picked up the slack. We have some really strong competitors. They go in and compete hard and with the mindset to compete to win.”
As the fifth seed, Arkansas is the highest seed in its session and will compete in Olympic order at the championships for the first time in program history.
The Razorbacks will go up against Georgia, Auburn and Missouri in its session, before the final session begins at 6 p.m.
The Razorbacks are one week removed from its record performance from the Arkansas Tri meet against Denver and Iowa State where they posted a 197.300.
It’s the second time in three meets that Arkansas has set a new team high record, after tallying a 197.275 against Arizona March 2.
“We’re going in and want to focus on our team and ourselves,” said Armbrust. “We don’t want to let the distractions get to us. We competed on podium earlier this season and it helped us get use to that environment and get use to being on that podium, that will really help us get ready for SEC’s. We’re going to come out here and attack this meet Saturday.”
After finishing last in the conference last season, the Razorbacks are the most improved team in the league heading into the postseason.
Behind strong performances from its young talent, and just three seniors, the Razorbacks improved the team’s RQS (Regional Qualifying Score) by 0.99 points from this point last season, while improving the team’s season average by 1.948 points.
No other team in the conference improved their RQS by more than 0.33 points or their season average by 0.142 points.
Tomorrow’s first session is set to begin at 2 p.m. and will be televised on the SEC Network.
The network will use a quad box to highlight all events at once during the Championships.
Each event will be individual streamed live on the SEC Network+ and the WatchESPN App.
