Courtney Kupets scored 10.0 on Bars and Beam to lead Georgia to victory over their arch rivals Alabama. This was Georgia Head Coach Suzanne Yoculan’s last dual meet vs Alabama Head Coach Sarah Patterson.
Yoculan retires at the end of this season.
In front of a crowd of 9,938 on Friday, the Gym Dogs posted a 197.175-196.275 victory over the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Courtney Kupets posted a career-high 39.825 to win the all-around for the fourth meet in a row as the Gym Dogs moved to 4-0 for the season. Kupets’ 39.825 was the fourth highest all-around score in Georgia gymnastics history.
“There is no team in the history of my career that I would rather beat than Alabama,“ Georgia coach Suzanne Yoculan said. …
Why is Suzanne so irked with ‘Bama?
That’s an interesting story.
It’s a BIG rivalry.
… it all began to heat up when the teams were two of the best in the country.
The Gym Dogs captured their first NCAA Championship in 1987, and Alabama followed suit in 1988. Georgia won in 1989 and Alabama was victorious in 1991. Georgia captured its third title in 1993 and Alabama evened the rivalry in 1996.
“We were going back and forth,” Yoculan said. “We both had great teams and (Patterson) was working so hard to build attendance over there.”
“We had the same kind of challenges. She’s a big promoter.
“And she’d come up with an idea and I’d be like, ‘That’s awesome. I need to come up with a better idea.’ It would go back and forth like a ping-pong match.”
In 1995, when Alabama traveled to Georgia for a meet, a confrontation erupted during warmups when Patterson saw that Georgia did not have the most current uneven bars on the competition floor.
“The new spreader that came out made it better for taller girls,” Yoculan said. “We didn’t have it yet, but we weren’t required to. She just made a decision in her mind that we did it on purpose.”
Alabama had multiple falls on the uneven bars and subsequently suffered a loss to Georgia. Following the meet, the conflict continued.
“She went into the press conference and went on and on about the bars – that we deliberately did it,” Yoculan said. “That we didn’t have the equipment and that it affected the outcome of the meet. … And I would never do something like that. I wouldn’t not put the bars out there to get an edge.”
Yoculan responded with a quote she had read in a motivational book: “Losers make excuses; winners make adjustments,” and was later reprimanded by the school and SEC officials. …
Final flames in fiery feud – Yoculan, Patterson battle in final regular-season meet
Of course some speculate that the feud is “contrived to generate interest”. That’s at least partly true.
Utah Coach Greg Marsden noted that “both will probably be offended to learn that in some ways he thinks they’re similar”.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 