Week 3 #NCAAMGym Recap: Oklahoma, Michigan, Navy Shine
Windy City Invitational
Michigan opened their 2020 season with a huge win over multiple Big Ten rivals at Windy City last Saturday, ending Illinois’ five-year win streak at the event.
The Wolverines put up a 400.0 to best second-place Minnesota by roughly a point-and-a-half. They had the highest team score — by slim margins — on pommel horse, vault, parallel bars and high bar. Cameron Bock had a banner day. The standout junior won horse and vault and took second on floor, parallel bars and in the all-around. Junior Nick Guy was second on vault, and freshman Paul Juda earned bronze on high bar and fourth all-around.
Michigan had the steadiest performance of any team on the floor Saturday, avoiding a costly event score, and their path to victory was paved from event one. The Wolverines began with a 70.7 on vault led by Bock’s stuck Kas 1.5, and the momentum carried them through the meet. Their biggest struggle came on rings where their 65.55 was the lowest score among the Big Ten teams and almost four points behind Illinois’ score on the event.
It should be noted that the Wolverines’ quest for victory was seriously aided by the absence of Stanford who because of weather was unable to make it to Chicago for their first appearance at Windy City in over a decade. Still, Michigan lived up to their No. 2 preseason ranking and secured a win against formidable opposition.
The Wolverines are off this weekend.
Minnesota came roaring back from a disappointing showing at Rocky Mountain Open to finish Windy City in second with a 398.75. It was the first time in years that Minnesota beat Illinois at the annual face-off in Chicago, and the Gophers needed it.
The key to the Minnesota’s improvement was, unsurprisingly, Shane Wiskus, who didn’t compete at Rocky Mountain. Wiskus won the all-around title by four tenths and had the top score for his team on five of six events. He also earned titles on floor and parallel bars.
The Gophers appeared to be in striking distance of Michigan toward the end of the meet. However, their final rotation on floor was a mixed bag: junior Colton Dee tied for second with a 13.8 and Mike Moran was in fourth with a 13.6, but they were forced to count an 11.9. Minnesota was ultimately just over a point back from Michigan.
Minnesota’s biggest improvements over last week came on horse and high bar. They were just four points behind Michigan on horse for the top team score of the meet, counting mostly mid- to high-12s. On high bar, they jumped more than four points from last week’s score and recorded five sticks. Senior Timmy Kutyla led the effort on with a 13.6, which was good for third.
Though the biggest improvement was simply the team’s demeanor. Minnesota had a much better handle of their routines, and they mostly avoided the kind of multi-mistake routines that can throw a meet for a team. Minnesota will be tested again this weekend when they face Illinois at home. The Illini will be hungry to make up for their mediocre performance in Chicago, and the Gophers will need guys like Moran, Crew Bold and Donte McKinney — in addition to Wiskus, Kutyla and Dee — to continue improving.
The Fighting Illini were unable to clinch their sixth-consecutive victory at Windy City this year, finishing third with a 394.2.
Illinois recorded 14 falls throughout the meet, according to coach Justin Spring, and those mistakes were especially costly on horse and parallel bars. They had the lowest score of the Big Ten teams on those events, as well as on floor and high bar.
“We entered a bigger field with a lot more pressure and we under-performed,” Spring told FightingIllini.com. “That tells me that we need to better the pressure and must-hit circumstances in the gym for the team.”
The Illini started their meet on what was far and away their best event, rings. They scored a 69.3 to outpace the next-best team by about two points, led by Max Diab’s first-place 14.05. Danny Graham and Jordan Kovach tied with Minnesota’s Wiskus for the second-place spot on rings with 13.9s.
Vault was solid (Diab took third with a 14.35), but things turned on parallel bars where the Illini had to count a high-11 and a pair of 12s. Sebastian Quiana was the exception; he took third with a 13.9. High bar and floor weren’t catastrophic by any means (Hamish Carter took second on high bar), but Illinois didn’t make up ground either. Horse, their last event, was particularly costly, though. They had to count a low-11, and their star swinger, Michael Paradise, wasn’t able to turn in the high-14 he’s capable of (though he still took second with a 13.75). Their 62.65 on horse was about two points back from Minnesota and Michigan’s scores on the event. They struggled on horse last week as well, meaning it will be extra important for Illinois to kick off this Saturday’s dual meet against Minnesota with a strong performance on pommels.
The Iowa Hawkeyes were about a point back from Illinois, notching a 393.1 for fourth place in their season opener.
Iowa was fairly consistent across the board, and their worst event (relative to the other Big Ten teams) was vault, where they were only about six tenths away from Illinois. The Hawkeyes didn’t have an event on which they lead.
“I'm pleased with the team's performance tonight,” coach JD Reive told HawkeyeSports.com. “They did the gymnastics that I expected and it kept the meet close.”
Iowa’s best individual result came from Bennet Huang who placed third in the all-around with a 80.4 and fourth on horse. No other Hawkeye made an individual podium. Nicholas Merryman was taken out of the meet after a frightening fall off high bar during warmups, his absence hurt Iowa greatly.
“We competed well, especially considering that we lost Nicholas Merryman during warmups. With Nicholas, Evan Davis, and Stewart Brown at full strength we will have a strong lineup,” Reive said.
The Hawkeyes are back on the road this weekend. They face a strong Nebraska team in Lincoln on Sunday.
Host UIC took fifth at Windy City with a 358.65, a significant improvement from their performance at Illinois the prior weekend.
The Flames were able to make that near 20-point jump by improving on high bar, rings and pommel horse. They were about five points better on each.
Leading the charge for UIC was Sam Montague, who scored 71.85 in the all-around with scores in the 13s on floor and vault. Colin Schwartz also had a solid day, tallying high 12s on horse, vault and parallel bars.
UIC is off this weekend.
Northern Illinois rounded out the team results with a 281.15. Their best events by far were floor and vault, where they scored 56.05 and 56.75. David Dortmund had a strong day and finished 11th all-around with a 72.2.
Oklahoma, Arizona State @ Ohio State
Many thought Oklahoma wouldn’t be able to stay in the conversation for top-team this year with all of the big names they lost. Just two weeks in, we know that is not the case. Mark Williams always finds a way to get it done and his program was on display in Columbus, where OU posted the highest score in the country: 412.2.
The first few weeks of competition are usually about finding an identity and figuring out who your leaders are. The identity is the same as always for this 2020 team: hit routines and stick dismounts. This year’s leader is more of a surprise: Gage Dyer has been dominant on his top-four events (FX, VT, PB, HB) to pace the Sooners. Dyer took titles on floor (15.15) and parallel bars (14.1) to go along with a second-place finish on high bar (13.85).
Who else has been bearing the workload in the absence of some of the lost star power? Vitaliy Guimaraes and Alexei Vernyi. Guimaraes took second place on floor with a 14.75 and won vault with his stuck Yurchenko two and a half (15.05). Vernyi had a second place finish on vault (14.4) in his five event showing.
Pommel horse and rings are a little bit of a different story for the Sooners so far this year. Only three of their starts on pommel horse this past weekend were 15 or higher and only one of such value on rings. This is not necessarily cause for concern, but could prevent OU from their usual reign of dominance as this young season unfolds.
Ohio State competed for the first time this season and finished in second place on their home floor. The Buckeyes were pretty consistent across the board with no event totals under the 64.5 mark with the exception of rings where they posted a 62.8. Improvements there could easily have them over the 400 number.
Losing a talent like Alec Yoder is nearly impossible to replace, but head coach Rustam Sharipov must have liked what he saw out of their talented freshman, Justin Ah Chow, in his collegiate debut. Ah Chow competed on every event except rings, scoring above a 12.9 on all five of them. His day included an impressive second place finish on parallel bars with a 13.9.
Their 397.6 sets a solid floor for this young team. Look for Angel Leon and Jesse Tyndall to start coming alive as the season unfolds. The pair of sophomores join Ah Chow as a trio of very talented underclassmen. It is also worth noting that Max Andryuschenko was out of lineups today, having him back would give a significant boost to their score.
Arizona State finished in third place, taking a significant step back from their groundbreaking performance a week earlier at the West Point Open. Their 380.7 was over 15 points lower than their previous showing. Kiwan Watts did not compete on rings but the lineup was relatively similar to what we saw a week ago, aside from this.
Watts seems to always find himself on the podium one way or another. He took first place on high bar, beating out a deep field with a 13.9. ASU also got a strong showing from Christopher Bartee who took sixth place on floor (13.85) and finished fifth on rings (13.3). The Sun Devils will look to get back in form when they head to the Pac-12 Invitational February 2nd.
Stanford, Air Force @ California
Although in a less convincing way than in Week 2, the Stanford Cardinal showed that they can score well even when they are not near their best. With a number of falls and uncharacteristic mistakes throughout the competition, Stanford was still able to score above the 400 mark with a 401.85.
The Cardinal’s second competition of the 2020 NCAA season started with a solid rings rotation. Their 68.3 event total was their second highest event score of the night with Brandon Briones posting a 13.9 and Ian Gunther a 13.8. Despite a couple of mistakes on floor, the Cardinal were led by Bryan Perla (14.1) and Briones (14.3). Joey Ringer, one of Stanford’s most talented pommel horse workers, helped his team on horse by posting a 13.6, which was the top score of the competition. Brody Malone was just half a tenth behind Ringer with a 13.55. High bar was Stanford’s lowest-scoring event of the night. This is no surprise as only two of their six routines scored above a 13. Senior David Jessen’s 13.65 was enough to bring the Czech national team member an event title.
Just like last week, vault was Stanford’s highest-scoring apparatus. With slightly fewer stuck landings than in their season opener, the Cardinal posted an impressive 70.55 to make them the highest-ranked team on this event so far in the season. Connor Lewis’s massive 14.6 score earned him the vault title.
Unfortunately for Stanford, they were unable to finish their competition on a high note as they failed to put up convincing performances on their final apparatus. After a couple of falls and large execution errors, the Cardinal were only able to record two scores above a 13.0.
Cal’s second home competition of the season could not have started in a more promising way. After boosting up their floor exercise score by nearly 4.5 points from last week, the California Golden Bears were able to improve their final team score by almost three points as they recorded a 385.7. Cal’s floor lineup was led by senior captain Kyte Crigger (13.95) and Canadian sophomore Darren Wong (14.15), who had the second highest score on this event.
Unfortunately for the Bears, their convincing start was cut short after an absolute nightmare rotation on pommel horse. After a number of falls from nearly everyone in the lineup, Wong’s third-place 13.5 was not enough to dig the team out of the hole as they posted a disappointing 57.7 event score. After pommels, the Bears were able to make up ground on the following rotation with strong routines from seniors Harrison Plate (13.4) and Crigger (13.45). They were able to keep the momentum on vault with several good performances from freshmen Kyle Shuttle (14.05) and senior Asad Jooma (14.1), but just when things were looking positive for Cal, large execution errors and a number of falls on parallel bars pulled them down once again. Wong was an exception on this event as he continued to have an impressive competition and performed a clean routine that earned him the second-highest score of the night (13.75). The story on high bar was almost identical to parallel bars. Although the Bears were able to end the night with a couple clean routines, they were forced to count too many falls and only scored a 62.35. Wong’s impressive night ended with a 13.45, which placed him in second, just behind event winner, Jessen. Overall, Cal was able to show improvement, but they will be looking to make progress on some very problematic areas like horse, parallel bars and high bar.
It was a disappointing night for Air Force as they dropped 12.5 points from their opening week of the season. Several meager performances at the start of the competition, as well as some poor performances toward the end, saw the Falcons record their lowest team score in quite some time. Although vault is clearly Air Force’s strongest event, the team struggled on events like pommel horse and high bar, where only one score on each event was above a 12.0. The Falcons will be eager to bounce back from this disappointing weekend as they take on Penn State at home on Feb. 1.
Navy Open
The biggest story coming out of Annapolis this weekend was the massive score (407.8) put up by the Midshipmen. This was good enough for the second-highest week three score and moved Navy into fourth place, based off of scoring average. Granted the small sample size and the judging may have been a little relaxed, but Navy still looks very impressive two weeks into their season.
It was a dominant showing across the board as Navy swept the event titles. Lucas Beltran (FX - 14.15, VT - 14.8), David Toussaint (PH - 13.4), Josh Williams (SR - 13.65), Ryan McVay (PB - 13.5), and Cash Buske (HB - 14.0) all took home titles in the showing. High bar was a particularly dominant event where a few names have been stepping up. Buske has continued to show improvement from last year and is joined by Max Gerber, Ryan Orce, and Ben Provost to form the top lineup in the ECAC.
Their performance from this past weekend has put them on the map; Navy will be a team to watch in 2020. It will be interesting to see whether or not they can continue their pace and vie for a coveted day two spot at NCAA Championships.
William & Mary took second place with a 382.8, an improvement of over five points from their previous performance. They were paced by a solid parallel bars rotation where they scored a 63.2, giving them almost three points of separation over Springfield on that event. They were led by Aidan Cuy who scored a 12.9, good for sixth place.
Colin Lillie stepped up for the Tribe as well, earning a fourth place finish on floor (13.8) and a fifth place finish on rings (12.8). Andrew Lyubovsky had another solid day including a fifth place finish on vault (14.2) and a second place finish in the all around (75.5). William & Mary will look to continue to improve and get some top names back in the lineup when Cutter Fugget and Tomas Palma make their debuts.
Springfield finished behind William & Mary for the second week in a row to take third place. They were paced once again by Stephen Lewis who won the all-around title with a 76.35, even on an off day by his standards. Floor was the highlight for the Pride, where Lewis (13.45), Dominic Ramalho (13.3), and John Murphy (13.3) all put up solid routines en route to a 65.95 on the event.
Temple received another strong performance from Nicolino Dibattista who took third in the all around with a 73.4 and also tallied a sixth place finish on high bar (12.6). The Owl’s 356.45 was a two tenth improvement over their previous showing.
Army @ Penn State
Penn State secured their second win of the season in a dual meet against Army last weekend, but the Nittany Lions’ winning score of 390.35 was a more than 10-point drop from their season opener at West Point the previous week.
PSU had a good start to the meet on floor, taking the top five event spots for a solid 66.1, a one-point improvement from the West Point Open. The floor effort was led by senior Brady Yamamoto, who scored a 13.6.
Pommel horse was a different story. The Nittany Lions dropped about six points on the event from their season opener, and almost two of those points were lost on account of horse phenom Stephen Nedoroscik, who scored a 13.7. Nedoroscik is human, of course, but it goes to show how much this Penn State team’s success on pommels depends on his routine.
Rings was the second-largest drop from the week earlier for Penn State. They put up a 63.3 at home after scoring a 68 even at West Point. Admittedly, the judging on rings was tight — a fact that Army certainly felt, but we’ll get to that later — and as a result the Nittany Lions had to count a mid-11 and a few 12s. Their lowest-counting score the week prior was a 12.95. Senior Issac Hammet’s routine was a bright spot, though. He tallied a 13.7 for a six-tenth win. Penn State’s other individual title was won on high bar by freshman Andres Perez Gines with a 13.8.
Penn State’s top all-arounder, Sam Zakutney, was inactive once again against Army. His return — which, on a couple events, is likely this weekend — will definitely change things for the Nittany Lions. His impact difference at NCAAs last year was almost five points, more than anyone else’s, and PSU will need every tenth in their effort to defeat Ohio State at home this Saturday.
Like Penn State, Army recorded an over 10-point drop in team score last weekend as compared to the one before. At their home opener, Army scored 388.55. At Penn State last weekend, they scored 372.6.
Also like the Nittany Lions, the Black Knights’ biggest drop from meet-to-meet came on rings. They scored a 59.9 in State College but a 65.25 the week earlier. Much of that drop off was due to more stringent judging and not necessarily worse performance — at least not five-points worse. Still, Army had to count a 10 and two 11s on the event.
The Black Knights weren’t able to get ahead of Penn State on any event. The closest they came was on horse, where their 63.95 was about a point-and-a-half behind the Nittany Lions. Junior Matthew Martin was stellar on the event; he went 14.2 to easily take the title.
Army was again troubled by problems on parallel bars. Their 58.45 was the lowest score on the event among the NCAA teams that weekend (although judging is partly to blame in this case, too). They struggled on parallel bars at their home opener, and it’s currently the event Army’s ranked the lowest on.
The Black Knights’ standout sophomore all-arounder, Mathew Davis, had another strong outing, scoring a 76.45 for the all-around crown. He also picked up a title on parallel bars and placed second on rings.
Army competes this Sunday at Springfield. They’ll look to get back near 390 by improving on rings, parallel bars and high bar.