STANFORD, Calif. - No. 3 Stanford finished just short of history on Saturday evening, finishing second at the NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championships with a season-best team score of 332.061. Michigan won the national championships with a 332.224 score, less than two tenths ahead of the Cardinal.
Asher Hong brought home two individual NCAA titles on floor exercise and still rings, now becoming a six-time individual national champion in his career. Mark Berlaga, Jeremy Bischoff, Taylor Burkhart, Ian Lasic-Ellis, Colt Walker, and Khoi Young joined Hong in earning a combined 11 All-America honors, pushing Stanford's program total to 305.
The night began on high bar, where Lasic-Ellis scored a Stanford-high 13.700 from the anchor position to take fifth in the event. Brandon Nguyen narrowly missed the podium after a 13.600 routine, while Bischoff (13.500) and Burkhart (13.566) also had strong showings to give the Cardinal a 54.366 rotation score to begin the night in third place.
The Cardinal followed that up with a monster rotation on floor exercise, highlighted by Hong's title-winning 14.600 routine. The routine was the individual floor routine of any Stanford gymnast this season. Burkhart also added his season-best score of 14.433 to finish fourth in the event, as Stanford jumped into second place after two rotations.
Arun Chhetri led off the pommel horse rotation with a 13.600 while Khoi Young turned in a third-place effort of 14.333, but a pair of falls in the rotation caused Stanford to tumble in the team standings, as the 52.232 rotation score dropped them down to fourth place in the team race.
Stanford would recover nicely, however, on still rings as Hong (14.433) and Berlaga (14.200) would claim first and second place in the event after their stellar routines. Burkhart's 13.833 routine would just miss the podium in ninth place, while a stuck dismount and a 13.733 score from Chhetri gave Stanford a 56.199 rotation score to push them back into the top three.
The Cardinal kept the momentum rolling with a monster vault rotation, scoring a season-best 57.432 from three All-American scores from Hong (14.566), Walker (14.400), and Burkhart (14.366). Young also added a 14.100 vault in the leadoff spot, as Stanford took its first team lead of the night heading into the final rotation.
With it all coming down to parallel bars, Stanford again turned in a strong rotation with a 55.899 score. Walker finished as the national runner-up after scoring a 14.133, while Hong (14.033) and Bischoff (14.000) also earned podium honors to put the Cardinal in position to win. However, Michigan turned in a 56.599 rotation on vault, reclaiming the lead on the final routine of the night to become national champions.
It is the first season the NCAA team trophy will not return to The Farm since 2018, as the Cardinal entered the weekend looking to become the first program to win six consecutive national titles.
Instead, Stanford finished as the national runner-up for the sixth time in program history, joining the 1994, 2008, 2010, 2015, and 2016 squads.