Week 2 #NCAAMGym Recap: OU, Penn State Pick Up Big Wins
Rocky Mountain Open
Oklahoma is still Oklahoma.
Despite losing the bulk of their lineup and a number of team leaders, the Sooners proved at last weekend’s Rocky Mountain Open that the poise and polish synonymous with OU gymnastics are alive and well. OU rallied throughout Saturday’s meet to put up a 409.9, besting an ascendant Nebraska team thanks to big performances on floor, rings and vault.
The effort was in large part led by Gage Dyer, Vitaliy Guimaraes and Alexei Vernyi. Dyer and Guimaraes tied for a floor title, Guimaraes won rings and vault, Dyer tied for the high bar crown, and Vernyi won all-around. Freshman David Sandro, coach Mark Williams’ pick for sleeper gymnast, also impressed: He finished third all-around, completing the Sooners’ AA podium sweep.
It wasn’t one routine or rotation that made OU’s performance remarkable. Rather, it was the general confidence the team exhibited throughout. Doubts about OU’s ability to make up for their significant losses were abundant prior to the meet, and it isn’t a stretch to say that many of them have been eased. There were mistakes, to be sure — the Sooners weren’t punished for poor dismounts as much as they might be later in the season — but they seemed unperturbed by them.
The Sooners have room to grow, too. Dyer, for example, competed a 5.7 start value on floor and a Kas 1.5 on vault. He’s capable of significant upgrades on both. OU travels to Columbus this weekend to face Ohio State and ASU. Let’s see if the same team shows up.
Almost as impressive as OU were the Nebraska Cornhuskers who were particularly good on pommel horse. Nebraska entered the season with high expectations for themselves as they hope win a Big Ten and NCAA title. The former certainly seemed feasible as the Huskers moved through the meet, showcasing a strong team culture and a lot of spirit. Their performance definitely lived up to their third-place finish at NCAAs last season. Nebraska made it known they’ll be a contender in 2020.
The Huskers claimed the top team score on pommel horse by more than two points, and they swept the podium on the event. Charlie Giles, Evan Kriley and Cooper Giles (who tied with OU’s Braden Collier) were first, second and third, respectively. Dillian King was fourth on high bar, and Jake Bonnay tied for third on floor.
Nebraska’s weak point was definitely rings, an event they’ve struggled on for years. They were almost three points behind OU there, and they had to count an 11.9. For Nebraska to seriously vie for a Big Ten title, they’ll need to improve here. If they don’t, Illinois, who recorded the top rings score of any team last weekend, will exploit the weakness and leave Nebraska scrambling to make up for the deficit on other events.
Still, Nebraska looked ready to take on Illinois and Michigan, and it’s a shame we won’t get to see that match-up at Windy City. Nebraska’s off until Jan. 26, when they face Iowa at home.
There was a big drop-off in team score after Nebraska, and Minnesota was there in third. It’s tough to fully assess what the Gophers’ performance at Rocky Mountain meant for the team because many of their top guys (most notably Shane Wiskus, but also Crew Bold, Donte McKinney and Eric Nakamura) were out with the flu. Still, it was a disappointing season debut for a team who’s eyeing a Big Ten title.
The Gophers started the meet on the event that cost them the most, pommel horse, where they scored just 61.65 — the lowest team total on the event of the meet. A bright spot among the gloom was Matt Sullivan’s set. He went 13.2 in his official collegiate debut.
Minnesota never seemed able to pick up momentum after pommel horse. Vault was probably their best event — junior Colton Dee took home silver — but a poor high bar rotation — save for Timmy Kutyla’s first-place set — did more damage than vault did good.
The Gophers’ final score of 391.25 would have been their worst last season by almost five points. We’ll need to see a new Minnesota team at Windy City this weekend for them to still be considered a serious championship contender.
Air Force finished Rocky Mountain Open in fourth with a 381.9. The Falcons’ new head coach, Josh Loeser, emphasized in CGA’s season preview how important it was to increase his team’s difficult scores over the next few seasons, and that effort was apparent at Rocky Mountain: The Falcons were pushing D-scores in the 5.0-5.3 range on most events.
Loeser knows his team will need to do tougher gymnastics if they want to compete with the best in the country, and he’s also aware that doing so takes a while and opens up a team to mistakes.
Ultimately, Air Force’s push for difficulty resulted in a number of costly mistakes. The team finished high bar with a 58.0 and parallel bars with a 63.85. Their best event was probably rings, where all of their counting scores were between 12.7 and 13.1. Air Force didn’t secure a medal on an event, but Frankie Valentin had a solid meet, tallying 13s on floor, pommel horse, rings and vault for a fourth-place all-around finish.
The Falcons’ task will be to continue investing in difficulty while honing consistency. That simply takes time, but we should expect Air Force to be clean enough to compete for a team title against Cal this Saturday.
Washington took the fifth-place spot at Rocky Mountain with a 375.35. The Huskies were led by senior Benjamin Bloom, who took sixth in the all-around with a 76.25.
The Huskies struggled on high bar, where they counted three 11s, and pommel horse; but they avoided a big outlier event score. Their average across six events was 62.6 and high bar was their lowest at 59.75. They also beat Air Force on floor.
Washington is off until the Pac-12 Invitational on Feb. 2.
West Point Open
The Nittany Lions opened up their 2020 campaign with a win at the West Point Open, their seventh-straight WPO title. Their 403.4 was good enough for the fifth-highest score in the country over the weekend. It was done without Sam Zakutney, Andres Perez and Parker Clayton in the lineup, setting an impressive base for this team.
Penn State already looks to be exactly what we thought they would be on pommel horse after just one week: untouchable. They put up a 70.4 as a team led by Stephen Nedoroscik, who scored a career high 15.5 from a 16.6 start value. He also debuted his 16.8 set in event finals. A lineup of Nedoroscik, joined by Favian Valdez, Chase Clingman, Nick Mock and Jack Baldwin could be capable of hitting 71+ down the road. Clingman struggled in his debut but showed promise and is one to watch as the season develops.
Isaac Hammet (SR - 14.35), Eric Lung (PB - 13.30) and Alex Frack (HB - 14.0) all joined Nedoroscik as event winners. Both Frack and Lung showed significant improvement from a season earlier, helping to fill the large gaps left on parallel bars and high bar from the departure of an impressive senior class. Penn State will be happy to head home with a win and will look to get healthier in this young season.
While Penn State was expected to win, very few people saw Arizona State finishing second. This team looked great as they scored a 395.85, an improvement of over 12 points from Week 1 and just .05 off last year’s season high. Vault was the real stand-out event where a 71.35 team total was good enough to take down the rest of the field.
It was Kiwan Watts who paced the Sun Devils, winning the aforementioned vault title (14.6) to go along with a title in the all-around. Watts put up a dominant performance across the board, scoring an 83.15, good enough to create 3.9 in separation between him and the second-place finisher.
Other highlights for Arizona State included a fourth-place finish for Christopher Bartee on rings (13.8), a third-place finish on vault from Anthony Mills (14.35), and a third-place finish from Kirk Malm on high bar (13.5). All in all, it was a great day for the Sun Devils who will be on 400 watch moving forward.
Navy landed behind Arizona State in third place, a disappointing finish considering this team’s talent and typical display of poise. It was parallel bars that hurt this team the most as they were forced to count two scores in the 11s and three in the 12s, en route to an event total of 60.35.
There were still highlights for this team including a great showing on floor (68.1) and pommel horse (65.7). The Midshipmen took second through fourth place on the former courtesy of David Toussaint (13.95), Connor Van Loo (13.85) and Josh Williams (13.8). Even with an impressive pommel horse score, there are still points to add considering the room for growth we may see from Toussaint and Ryan Orce.
Navy did not have their best day but look for them to bounce back strong under the impressive leadership of Kip Simons.
Army finished in fourth place with the highlight for them being the performance of Mathew Davis. The sophomore is coming off of a terrific freshman season and picked up right where he left off, tallying a first place finish on floor (14.05) and a fourth-place finish in the all-around (77.8). Improvements on pommel horse and high bar could have him scoring in the 80s.
The Black Knights struggled as a team on parallel bars where they were unable to break the 60 mark. Improvements here could have them scoring in the mid 390s and competing neck and neck with their rival, Navy.
Fifth place belonged to William & Mary, who were able to edge Springfield by .65. Aidan Cuy had an eighth-place showing on parallel bars (12.65), which was good enough to land him a spot in event finals. The Tribe also got a strong performance out of Andrew Lyubovsky who placed eighth in the all-around (74.45).
Springfield took sixth, backed by a great performance from Stephen Lewis who took third in the all-around with a 79.2. Lewis also took second place on vault with a 14.5. Dominic Ramalho also churned out a solid performance on parallel bars with a fifth-place finish (12.75).
Temple and New York Alliance rounded out the competition. Temple had ninth- and tenth-place finishes in the all-around from Nicolino Dibattista (73.7) and Garret McDaniel (72.9). New York Alliance had a nice showing on floor from Andrew Mattson (12.45).
Cal Benefit Cup
The fifth annual Cal Benefit Cup staged a familiar duel between the California Golden Bears and the Stanford Cardinal, and for the fifth-straight year Stanford was able to come out on top. Their impressive 407.3 team score was the second-highest score of the week and placed them just below Oklahoma, who opened up their 2020 season with a 409.9.
With the help of freshmen Brandon Briones and Riley Loos and seniors David Jessen and Joey Ringer, the Cardinals got off to an adequate start on the pommel horse as they did not count a score below a 13.0. The following rotation was shaky for Stanford as they were forced to count several uncharacteristic falls throughout their floor exercise lineup. One exception in this rotation was the talented Briones, who recorded the highest score of the night (13.75) and won his first ever NCAA event title.
As the Cardinal moved to vault at about the halfway point of the competition, everyone began to witness the Stanford that we all remember from the end of last season when they seemed to be faultless. With six 5.2 vaults and nearly three stuck landings, Stanford averaged a score of 14.54 and scored a massive 73.05. Briones added another event title to his name with a huge 14.75 and his sophomore teammate Brody Malone was just 0.05 behind him with a 14.7.
Stanford’s still rings lineup was highlighted by strong showings from sophomore Christopher Osgood and junior Thomas Lee who both scored 13.5. It was no surprise that the spotlight on this apparatus was once again on the youngster Briones. He performed an exceptionally clean routine that featured a rare and phenomenal triple back dismount that helped him record a 13.85.
Falling second behind their vault score of 73.05 was Stanford’s parallel bars. With only one start value below 5.5, the Cardinal put up a 68.25. The parallel bars lineup performed routines featuring several fascinating elements such as a “Nguyen” (single-rail freehip to handstand, quarter healy in) by Curran Phillips, a Tejada (peach salto) by Thomas Lee, and a Roethlisberger dismount (half in-back out) by Ian Gunther. The highest score on this apparatus (14.0) came from sophomore Curran Phillips, who had a 6.0 D-score and displayed complete mastery of support skills.
Stanford was not able to end their competition on a high note after they were forced to count several falls and thus a number of low scores on high bar. Andrew Bittner and Gunther tied for the event title with a 13.4, while Jessen was just behind them with a 13.35. Although the Cardinal faced a couple of shaky rotations during the night, they were able to start off their 2020 season in quite a convincing way.
With several injuries to a number of main all-arounders and event specialists, Cal had no choice but to change up their lineups and downgrade some of their routines. Cal’s floor exercise was led by freshman Kyle Shuttle who showed a great feel for the apparatus and scored a notable 13.6 that placed him in second just behind the event winner. Behind Shuttle was senior and 2018 floor exercise All-American, Kyte Crigger, with a 13.45.
Unfortunately for the Bears, similar to previous seasons, their first team performance on the pommel horse of 2020 showed signs of struggle and weakness. With a number of falls and large execution errors, they were only able to record three scores above 12.0. The highest score for Cal on this event was from sophomore Darren Wong (12.8). As Cal moved on to rings they were led by senior rings specialist Anton Vorona and team captain Crigger who scored 13.15 and 13.1, respectively.
Vault was Cal’s highest scoring event of the night as it featured a number of cleanly executed 4.8 vaults. Senior Asad Jooma’s 5.2 vault scored a 14.0 and was the highest for the Bears on that event. On parallel bars, the underclassmen led the way with solid performances from freshmen Noah Sano (13.3) and Wong (12.9). Meanwhile, on high bar the older and more experienced upperclassmen recorded the highest scores for the Bears. Crigger scored a 12.85 with junior Angel Haro just behind him with a 12.8.
The California Golden Bears will be looking to improve on their 382.85 team score this weekend when they face Air Force at home in the Haas Pavilion.
UIC @ Illinois
The Fighting Illini took down a familiar foe this past weekend en route to a 403.45, good enough for the fourth-highest week two score across the nation. It was a positive start for a depleted team who will be without Clay Stephens and Michael Fletcher for the entirety of the season.
Illinois really shined on vault where they scored a huge 72.2 thanks to five scores of 14.2+. Max Diab (14.65), Hamish Carter (14.6) and Jordan Kovach (14.5) placed first through third. Carter was also outstanding in this one where he won titles on pommel horse (13.15), high bar (14.05) and in the all-around (82.2). Carter will hope to continue to impress as a workhorse for his team throughout the season.
Pommel horse was a bit of a low-light, an event on which Illinois has almost always been in the top three over past seasons. They were forced to count three scores in the 12s and two low 13s tallying a 63.5 on the event, their worst showing of the day by almost two points. It is fairly safe to say the pommel horse woes won’t last long for the Illini and could very likely turn into a strength of theirs down the road.
UIC returned to competition in 2020 as a club team after having their program dropped by the university. It was great to see them able to stack full lineups, including with athletes who would not be eligible to compete if they were still an NCAA team. Craig Hernandez, a Penn State alum, competed on pommel horse.
The Flames had two marquee performances in this one: a third-place finish on floor from Nick Smiley (13.65) and a fifth-place finish on parallel bars from Colin Schwartz (12.45). It was a solid showing from UIC and they will look to improve in the coming weeks.