|
Stanford, Illinois, and California Advance to NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championships Finals Friday Night STANFORD, Calif. -- Stanford, Illinois, and California captured the top three spots in Thursday night's NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championships qualifier, joining Oklahoma, Penn State, and Michigan in Friday night's team finals. Top-ranked Stanford (363.85) finished 4.55 points ahead of second-place Illinois (359.3), while California rounded out the top three with a score of 357.1. Minnesota (349.15), Iowa (339.85), and Temple (333.0) missed out on the team finals, rounding out the six teams. The Cardinal recorded a session-high scores in the vault (64.05), high bar (59.65), rings (61.95), and floor exercise (61.90) on the way to the top overall score of all teams on Thursday. Stanford will hope to carry tonight's momentum into Friday's team final and capture the school's first national title since 1995. Greg Stine (Air Force), Luke Vexler (Temple), and Curtis Kleffman (Iowa) earned spots in Friday night's all-around finals. Securing berths in Saturday night's individual event finals were: Ben Ketelsen (Iowa), Andre Berry (Minnesota), and Colin McGuire (Minnesota) in floor exercise, Jacob Becker (Iowa), Kit Beikmann (Minnesota), and Berry in the pommel horse, Mitchell Mays (Minnesota), Sergei Dmitriev (Minnesota), and Diego Mercado-Au (Iowa) in the rings, Cole Storer (Minnesota), McGuire, and Scott Bloomfield (Temple) in the vault, Dmitriev, Mays, Aaron Fortunato (Minnesota), and Sterling Kramer (Temple) in the parallel bars, and Storer, Dmitriev, and Steven Vuong (Minnesota) in the high bar.
Post Session Quotes CAL Head Coach- Barry Weiner- "We made a decision to compete Tim on only one event this evening and it was very risky because he is our best gymnast on many events. It was risky because you don’t know if you are going to get a good enough score to advance, but Tim's back is real sore and we wanted him to be rested and healthy for tomorrow." Senior- Tim McNeill- "I am getting more comfortable pommel horse at bigger meets, so I think that my confidence is a bit higher going into tomorrow." Senior- Tim McNeill- "We've had a lot of really hard practices, were you do two or three routines on each event. The meet is more like a lighter workout, so if anything it is mentally draining, but we have prepared for that, simulating competitions in the gym and I think we are as ready as can be." ILLINOIS Head Coach- Yoshi Hayasaki- "We had a good meet. I guess one of the best competitions of the season, score-wise. This is what we have been training for everyday in practice, so all we have to do is what we do in practice. This was one of those that we did what we were capable of, which we have to carry on to tomorrow. Overall we had a very good meet today."Senior- Tyler Yamauchi- "I've been working on that vault for the last two weeks, but the table here is great and helps with my handspring. I have done two here and have landed both of them. I am confident going into tomorrow." Senior- Michael Boyer- "We definitely pride ourselves in being one of the closest, if not the closest team in the nation. It really helps out when you're not just competing for yourself, you are competing for 15 other people, in our case we have 20 other people. We all love each other, it's that much more fun if you hit." Senior Michael Boyer- On qualifying for the team's sixth straight team final, a feat only accomplished once before by Oklahoma- "It's exciting, we have a little, I don't know if you can call it a mini dynasty, but we have a very strong program and you have to credit the coaches..the consistency in coaching and in recruiting. It's a powerful statement, the fact that only two teams have gone six years in a row." STANFORD Head Coach- Thom Glielmi- "Glad to be moving on to the second round. Pleased with how the team did." Head Coach- Thom Glielmi- "We weren't as sharp as we have been, but this is our full line up. This is the first time we went with the full line up, so even though some of the routines weren't as sharp as we have had in previous meets, the depth of the line up and the difficulty that the team brings, I kind of saw that we would be breaking our team's personal record. And I think that is the highest score to date in the NCAA" Senior David Sender- On competing at home on the farm- "There is no time difference, for one. It's our own turf, there's fans we know, families, friends, and it's pretty nice to not have to travel anywhere. That takes up a lot of time, you generally lose a day of practice and it can also just throw you off time-wise. It's nice to just be a few blocks away." Junior Sho Nakamori- On if he is pleased with his performance- "For the most part yes, there were some bobbles here and there. The first couple rotations started out a little slow, had some miss cues on floor, so there is definitely some room for improvement and tomorrow I should be making up ground to make up for some lost points today." Junior Bryant Hadden- "We get to pick the rotation that we are going into, as the number one seed going in, and it (the order) is just a matter of what we are comfortable starting on and what events we are comfortable finishing on. We know we have a solid parallel bar line up that will do its job and put up some good scores and then finishing on a really solid vault, which is really great for our team because we know that the vaults will be hit."
Session II - Thursday, April 17 - Team Qualifiers Stanford
Summary Here... California
Summary Here...
|
