Auburn’s signing class consists of 10 incoming freshman, including Gabi Rivera and Chelsea Yauch, both of which were ranked in the top 150 by the magazine. The rest of the signees are Monica Afanador, Jessica Childress, Carolyn Cohen, Stephanie Fransoso, Lizzie Hamersly, Rebecca Howell, Caitlin King and Kasey Warren.
“We are real excited to see our class receive a number 17 ranking. We feel it is a class that adds both depth and quality to our team and we really expect this class to have an immediate impact for us,” AU Head Coach Karen Hoppa said. “I have to give a lot of credit to (Associate Head) Coach (Matt) Mott. As our recruiting coordinator, he did an outstanding job of recruiting and organizing this class and filling in all of the needs that we have for the 2006-07 season.”
The ranking is the second-highest for the Tigers in the last seven years. Auburn’s highest ranking was in 2002 when the class was ranked 15th nationally. Since 2001, it has been ranked 28th (’01), 15th (’02), 36th (’03), 32nd (’04 and ’05) and 17th (’06).
Among the SEC teams, Auburn’s class was ranked third, trailing only LSU and Georgia, which were nationally ranked seventh and eighth, respectively.
Auburn checked in at sixth out of the 52 teams that are ranked in Auburn’s region.