It was certainly a busy weekend on the Plains.
Auburn football officially named TJ Finley the starting quarterback ahead of the first week of the season and fans took to Twitter to share their reaction.
In addition to that big news, several other important things happened. Soccer continued its strong start to the season by tying Wake Forest thanks to another great defensive performance. A top 100 basketball target announced that he will be heading to the Big Ten over Auburn and the volleyball team opened their season with a perfect 3-0 weekend.
Read more about these stories below in the Monday edition of the Auburn Morning Rush.
Amani Hansberry picks Illinois over Auburn
Auburn target Armani Hansberry announced his commitment to Illinois over Auburn on Sunday afternoon.
Hansberry is a four-star power forward and had Auburn in his final five despite never taking a visit to the Plains. He was reportedly working to schedule an official visit to Auburn, but that may no longer be happening.
He is ranked as the No. 52 overall player and no. 10 power forwards in the 247Sports composite.
Auburn currently has one commitment in four-star point guard Aden Holloway.
Soccer plays Wake Forest to scoreless tie
Jacob Taylor/AU Athletics
Auburn soccer completed its first road trip of the season with their second tie, playing Wake Forest to a 0-0 finish.
Auburn is now 2-0-2 on the season and despite being outshot 12-6 by the Demon Deacons, goalie Maddie Prohaska made five saves to give the Tigers their third shutout of the season in just four games.
“Lots to learn from these games for sure, but they were two very challenging matches on the road,” head coach Karen Hoppa said. “Today, I thought we grew into the game, again, but we’ve got to work on starting stronger and starting more aggressive from an offensive standpoint. Credit to our defense, they have looked great to start the year and have really kept us in ballgames.”
Anna Haddock and Sydnie Thibodaux each had two shots in the game to lead the offense.
Auburn will return to action Thursday when they welcome No. 21 West Virginia to the Auburn Soccer Complex. The game is set to start at 6:30 pm CT.
Volleyball opens the season with a perfect weekend
Auburn volleyball opened its season with back-to-back wins over Belmont and Georgia State Friday before completing their perfect weekend by defeating Marist on Saturday.
After a late night Friday, Auburn had an early matchup against Marist, and head coach Brent Crouch thought that affected their play early.
“We didn’t get back to the hotel until nearly 10 pm last night and then to flip around and play a match early this morning is hard, especially because it was an emotional one last night,” Crouch explained. “We came out a little flat, which was expected but I was extremely proud of how we responded.”
Auburn won the first set 25-20 behind Fallan Lanham, who set the tone early by starting the match with an ace. Auburn dropped the second set 15-25 but won the next two 25-9, 25-12 to win their third match of the season.
“We changed some things around in the second set and challenged the team to push through the fatigue, and the response was obvious,” Crouch said. “A lot of growing this weekend and a number of different situations to experience. Glad we came out on top.”
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