Feb. 7, 2007

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - Southeast's gymnast will be heading to Columbia, Mo. Friday, February 9th to face the 19th ranked University of Missouri in the Hearnes Center. The meet will have a start time of 7:00 p.m.

The Redhawks (10-1, 5-0 MIC) are currently ranked 32nd nationally and are averaging a team total of 192.350. Their season high 193.700 was pulled off in their first meet of the season against Midwest Independent Conference (MIC) foes Illinois-Chicago and Centenary. Southeast leads the MIC on each team event and hold the top spot on the individual all-around.

Standouts for the Redhawks this season are MIC Gymnast of the Week Sandra Blake (Tri-Cities, Wash./Mid-Columbia) and last week's MIC Gymnast of the Week Rikara Turner (Hastings, Min./Twin City Twisters). Both gymnast are in the Top 100 nationally on the all-around and are ranked in the Top 3 of the conference.

Southeast is coming off a rough meet in La Crosse, Wis. where they took first but scored a low 190.850. They know scores like that will not help get them anywhere against Missouri and according to head coach Tom Farden, the Redhawks are fine tuning their routines in practice this week to prepare for the tough Tigers squad. The Redhawks will look to tally high scores, win or lose, this weekend to achieve their goal of returning to the NCAA South Central Regional.

The Missouri Tigers look to stand in the way of Southeast after coming off a hard fought loss to 11th ranked Iowa State last weekend. Missouri is averaging 194.100 as a team with a high-score of 195.025. The Tigers have a standout in sophomore Adrianne Perry. Perry tied her career-high 39.3 on the all-around last week against Iowa State and is currently ranked 33rd overall averaging 38.956.