NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Nears Post Season Action
Posted on 17 March 2009 by admin
The 2009 NCAA Men’s Gymnastics season is winding down its regular season with conference championships looming just around the corner. The major conference action takes place on April 3-4 with the Big 10 Championships at Ann Arbor, MI, while the MPSF Championships will be held on April 4 at Stanford.
There was plenty of action this past weekend. Oklahoma pummeled Ohio State 357.45 to 353.15. The Sooners’ Chris Brooks led the way with a 16.15 on vault, and he captured the All-Around with a score of 88.70. Steven Legendre won high bar (14.80) and parallel bars (14.90). Russ Czeschin tallied a career-high 15.70 to win the floor exercise. Check out the great coverage by Gymnastike.
Cal traveled to Happy Valley to defeat Penn State. Cal won four team events (PH,R,V,HB), but Penn State’s Casey Sandy took the All-Around with an incredible 90.30. The defending NCAA All-Around Champion also scored a career-high 15.65 on pommel horse to win that event. The Bears’ Kyson Bunthuwong (88.65) and Glen Ishino (87.60) captured 2nd and 3rd in the All-Around, respectively.
Illinois won a hard-fought battle in Ann Arbor, MI against Michigan. The highlight for the Illini was Paul Ruggeri’s 2nd place finish in the All-Around (87.20), and his first place crowns on vault (15.75) and parallel bars (15.05). Ruggeri is gearing up for a strong season finish after recovering from recent knee surgery. The fact he is now able to compete in all six events is encouraging. Meanwhile, the Wolverines’ Chris Cameron continued with his dominance in the All-Around by taking yet another crown (88.45).
Gym Info came out with their latest team rankings today. The top 5 are as follows:
- Oklahoma
- Stanford
- Cal
- Illinois
- Michigan
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:44 pm
A TIEEEEEEEE! ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN TIED! In watching the big ten network in what looked like a veryyyy controversial ending after the illini amazingly overtook michigan a protest changed a score to bring the tie. Very interesting but what an exciting meet… absolutely amazing! The illini on horse! michigan on high bar! Although I think the Illini should have won I congratulate the NEW BIG TEN CHAMPS ILLINOIS/MICHIGAN
April 5th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Amazing, MG. Some great performances by Ruggeri, Stannard, Kelly and Cameron. Sorry to see Ribeiro fall on horse. Tough meet for Penn State… hope Sandy recovers fully in time for NCAAs.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Absolutely, paul looked awesome on floor vault and pbars… too bad he fell on high bar or he definitely would have had that one too! The young kid from Minnesota looked really great on pbars as well. Ya, to bad for ribeiro on horse looks like he just slipped right off; but I’m sure he’d rather his teammate come through and get it than another team… Will they now be ranked #1 and #2 in the nation? Ohio State looked really good on Rings. Brandon’s routine is absolutely incredible! Too bad he had that 5 tenth step on the landing or I think he would have won rings for sure. There were some good 2 1/2 on vault and the two michigan guys looked really good on high bar. Actually 3 michigan guys looked great on high bar. Great meet and can’t wait to see in these two teams can compete with cal oklahoma and stanford. It looks like it could be a great nationals. The MPSF looked like there was some inflated judging on vault. I saw some great stuck double full vaults in the big ten that were going 15.6 and I couldn’t understand it.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
The Finals are going to be great. IL, MI, Stanford and Cal will battle it out. No predictions, especially since Stanford really whacked OU. Any of these 4 teams could take the title. IL & MI are peaking.