NORMAN, Okla. - No. 3 Stanford men's gymnastics advanced to the NCAA team championships tomorrow, posting a score of 348.500, good for a third-place finish in the Cardinal's qualifying group. Michigan and Penn State also advanced to the team finals.
Competing without the injured Cale Robinson, the ten-member Cardinal squad positioned itself to defend its national title tomorrow evening.
Stanford continued its strong performance on floor (60.300) and vault this season (59.550) with its highest scores of the meet. The Cardinal posted scores of 57.700 on pommel horse, 56.550 on still rings, 57.600 on parallel bars and 56.800 on high bar.
Head coach Thom Glielmi was pleased to advance and encouraged that the team could improve it's performance tomorrow.
"The guys were tight in places but after a while they realized they need to go for it," said Glielmi. "The rhythm of the competition is different from dual meets. We didn't do a great job of pacing ourselves and we were a little up and down.
"They guys are prepared and I have confidence in them. Gabe Alvarado fell on pommels and he hasn't missed a set in forever. It's better to get that out of the way today than tomorrow. We got through to the finals and I can see what we need to do. They need to execute and beat the other teams on execution and we're capable of doing that."
The Cardinal competes tomorrow night at 7 p.m. CST.
Love scoring and more information is available here.
Stanford top-ten individual performances:
Floor Exercise
2. Eddie Penev - 15,750
t-7. Paul Hichwa - 15.000
Pommel Horset-4. John Martin - 14.900
t-9. Sean Senters - 14.650
Still Rings4. James Fosco - 14.750
Vault1. Eddie Penev - 15.450
t-5. Sean Senters - 15.250
Parallel Bars
3. Cameron Foreman - 15.100
t-7. Eddie Penev - 14.500
High Bar
t-5. Eddie Penev - 14.500
All-Around2. Eddie Penev - 87.150