Week 5 #NCAAMGym Recap Presented by TURN
What happened this past weekend in the world of NCAA men’s gymnastics? Look no further than the #NCAAMGym Weekly Recap, presented by TURN.
Minnesota, UIC @ Iowa
A 400 flat was enough to get the job done at home for the Hawkeyes, taking down a talented Minnesota team. Unfortunately, this was not an official Big Ten matchup, so they will not pick up a conference win, though it was still a promising outcome for Iowa. Is it time to stop doubting this team? Underdog wins seem to be continuing into the 2020 season and becoming a bit of the norm.
Bennet Huang is out to prove he’s one of the top gymnasts in the country after this weekend marked three-straight all-around performances of 80+. Huang won the all-around with an 81.05 to go along with a second place finish on floor (14.0) and a third place finish on pommel horse (13.35). Evan Davis also competed in the all-around and had highlights on rings (1st - 13.5) and high bar (3rd - 13.6).
Despite having one of the lowest team start values in the country, Iowa continues to be a competitive team by out-executing their opponents. This strategy paid dividends for them last year in the form of a share of the Big Ten regular season title. The Hawkeyes look poised to continue being in the conversation after an impressive win against the Gophers.
Minnesota opted to rest Shane Wiskus this weekend as he only competed on pommel horse and high bar. The strategy brings into question the ceiling of this team without their star in the lineup. With Wiskus in the lineup, his team is in the conversation for best in the Big Ten. Without him, they can lose to anyone in the conference.
Even on his light day Wiskus took home a title on pommel horse (13.65). He was the lone highlight on horse for the Gophers where they scored a 62.85 en route to a team total of 397.95. Highlights also included event victories from Mike Moran (FX - 14.5), Donte McKinney (VT - 14.65), David Pochinka (PB - 13.85), and Crew Bold (HB - 14.10). McKinney and Bold are an impressive pair of freshman who will only get better as the season goes along.
UIC rounded out the competition with their second highest score of the season: 355.6. The Flames got a second place finish out of Craig Hernandez on pommel horse (13.45) and a sixth place finish out of Nick Smiley on floor (13.3)
Penn State @ Air Force
The Nittany Lions took down the Falcons in Colorado by a healthy margin of close to 24 points. It did mark a regression in team score and was their second total under 400 on the year. Nonetheless, Penn State was happy with a convincing win in an unfamiliar environment.
The biggest headline out of this one was the massive 15.9 Stephen Nedoroscik put up on pommel horse. It was over-scored, but was very easily a set in the 15.3-15.5 range, a number that would put him with some of the best in the world. His season has been beyond impressive thus far and the 16.8 set only seems to be getting easier for him. Nick Mock has quietly been the second best in the lineup this year and he cashed in another second place finish with his 13.9 routine.
Penn State has lacked major contributions from freshman thus far, but Robbie Shamp had a breakout day in Colorado. Shamp won both floor (14.1) and vault (14.05). Andres Perez who tied for first on high bar with Alex Frack (13.1) is another freshman who seems to be on the right track.
Sam Zakutney won the parallel bars title with a 13.8, but this team needs him back if they want to be in the conversation as Big Ten regular season competition begins.
It has been a rough season so far for Air Force who scored a 375.85, their second-highest of the season. For a team that scored in the 390s four times last year and was able to hit the 400 mark once, this is relatively disappointing.
The highlight for the Falcons was the rings title earned by Ethan Esval with a 13.5. An impressive feat considering some of the Penn State gymnasts he was competing against. Air Force will look to build on this as they head into the All Academy Championships next week against two very good teams.
PAC-12 Invitational
With almost entirely different lineups from last weekend, the Stanford Cardinal comfortably edged out all three of their Pac-12 opponent teams and showed the depth their team has. With the key members such as Brandon Briones, Riley Loos, Brody Malone and Ian Gunther sidelined for the night, Stanford head coach Thom Glielmi seemingly gave these all-arounders some rest before the upcoming Winter Cup Challenge. Only 13 of the 36 routines that were competed by the Stanford team in their home opener last weekend were competed at the Pac-12 Invitational.
Even with so many changes to their lineups, Stanford recorded a 406.6 which was enough for their third-highest team total of the season. Along with their consistent team success, Stanford once again impressed on an individual level as they collected six event titles. As Stanford’s only all-arounder, junior Andrew Bitner recorded an 81.2 which was enough for the title, as well as a career-best. Joey Ringer’s season-high of 13.8 on pommel horse helped him capture the event title and his teammate, Christopher Osgood, would do the same on rings with a career-high 14.4. Just 0.05 behind Osgood would be rings specialist Trevor DiGerolamo (14.35). With these two massive scores, the Cardinal would record their highest rings total of the season (69.25). Bailey Perez’s incredible stuck 5.2 vault saw him not only win the event title, but also record a career-high 14.85. Along with a career-high 14.65 on vault that would help Stanford put up an impressive 72.15 event total, sophomore Curran Phillips would win the parallel bars title with a huge 14.8. On high bar, Blake Wilson’s 13.2 would be enough to win. Stanford will hope to continue dominating as they travel to Arizona where they will take on Arizona State, the California Golden Bears and Ohio State Buckeyes.
For the Cal, the Pac-12 Invitational would be a competition of mixed emotions. Although the Bears were able to improve on three events from last week and record season-high event totals on still rings (66.05), vault (71.1) and parallel bars (66.25), a very poor performance on their final apparatus saw them record a 397.65 and miss out on a chance to score above a 400 for the second time this season. Interestingly enough, for the majority of the competition, the Bears managed to keep up with their Bay Area rivals, but a shocking number of falls on high bar, one of their weaker events, saw them finish nearly nine points behind Stanford. Despite the disappointment of not being able to improve on their 400.7 team total from last week, Cal had several impressive individual performances throughout the night. Darren Wong collected Cal’s only event title of the competition with a 14.2 on floor, while Kyte Crigger’s 14.0 placed him in third behind Wong and Connor Lewis from Stanford. Pommel horse specialist Will Lavanakul finished in third place with a 13.6 and Wong was just 0.1 behind him with a 13.5. Anton Vorona’s season-high score of 13.55 helped the Bears record their highest rings score of the season and Asad Jooma’s 14.6 on vault was the third-highest score on that event. Cal will be aiming to break the 400 barrier for the second time this season as they take part in the Arizona State Invitational next week.
After improving by nearly nine points from their previous competition, this weekend can be seen as a step in the right direction for the Arizona Sun Devils. ASU finished third with a 389.2 which would be their second-highest team score of the season. Impressive individual performances by several of the Sun Devils helped the team finish extremely close to a 390 team total, which is a notable achievement. Nick Garcia (13.6) and Dalton Hopkins (13.9) led ASU to a 66.25 on floor, while Kyle Burriss’ strong 13.4 helped the team to a 62.4. Junior Kiwan Watts recorded the second-highest scores of the competition on vault (14.65), parallel bars (14.45) and high bar (13.05). On February 8th, ASU will host Stanford, Cal and Ohio State.
For the University of Washington it was a rough day at the office as they recorded their lowest team score of the season (366.4). Despite several poor performances on a number of events, the Huskies impressed on vault and parallel bars, scoring 67.45 and 64.0 respectively. One exceptional performance came from freshman Luka Sisauri on pommel horse who performed an extremely difficult routine, combined with super clean execution to score a 13.65, the second-highest score of the evening. Senior Benjamin Bloom completed the all-around with a 73.25 and his senior teammate Jacob Jarrett posted a 72.4. Next week, Washington travels to Minnesota to take on the Golden Gophers.
Michigan @ Ohio State
Michigan earned a narrow victory in Columbus last Saturday, scoring an important Big Ten win but injecting some uncertainty into the conference picture.
The Wolverines topped Ohio State 409.6-408.5 with a standout performance on high bar that solidified their lead. They had a relatively solid start to the day on pommel horse, avoiding the kind of mistakes that would end up costing the Buckeyes, and pulled away at the end for a nearly 10-point improvement from their team result at Windy City.
Michigan increased their team score from their first meet on all six events. The biggest jump came on floor, where their 68.2 was an almost three point rise from their score at Windy City. Alan Gerdov led the floor effort with a 14.2.
The Wolverines were nonetheless behind Ohio State by over two points on floor, which was one of two events they trailed the Buckeyes on. Their widest event lead over the Buckeyes came on high bar, where Michigan took four of the top five individual spots. Jonathan Liu and Paul Juda tied for the title with 14.1s while Cameron Bock was less than two tenths back. Juda’s high bar set was a huge turnaround for him. A freshman with huge talent, he was struggling during the meet up until high bar. Despite the mistakes, he finished the meet with a 79.15 all-around.
Bock himself had a strong day, securing parallel bars (13.8) and rings (14.55) titles. Nick Guy took the Wolverines’ fourth event title. He won vault with a 14.8.
The meet was overall a step forward for the Wolverines, who looked more clean and capable than they did at Windy City. But most were expecting a convincing win, which this was not. A big test for Michigan will come on Feb. 15, when they take on OU at home in their last six-up, five-count meet.
The Buckeyes suffered an unfortunate loss at home after their narrow defeat by Penn State a week earlier. However, for a team who entered the weekend ranked No. 8, it was a season-changing performance.
Ohio State started the meet with a huge floor rotation led by Jesse Tyndall’s 15.0. OSU’s lowest-counting floor score was a 13.7, and their 70.8 was the highest floor score of any Big Ten team this season.
Richard Trams on pommel horse.
The Buckeyes ran into issues on pommel horse and had to count two low-12s. The performance didn’t seem catastrophic in the moment, but the 64.8 on horse cut too much into the lead they had built on floor. They were able to beat Michigan on vault by about half a point, with Justin Ah Chow’s clean Yurchenko double full taking second and three Buckeyes tying for third, but couldn’t score an event win anywhere else.
After the fifth rotation, the meet seemed to be in Michigan’s hands. OSU counted a fall on parallel bars and were trailing going into high bar, generally a lower-scoring event. But the close finish showed that Ohio state was actually much more in reach than it might have appeared. All of their counting scores on high bar were above 13, and Angel Leon’s 14.0 was a big set, but their high bar team score was still about a point and a half behind Michigan’s.
In addition to Tyndall on floor, the Buckeyes’ Richards Trams won horse with a 13.85. The team scored season-bests on floor, rings, vault and high bar.
OSU takes on Stanford and Cal at Arizona State this weekend.
Nebraska @ Illinois
Nebraska traveled to Champaign last weekend with all eyes on them in the weekend’s biggest matchup. They were coming off a huge win at home and looked, by most accounts, to be the best team in the Big Ten.
The Fighting Illini had other plans for the Huskers. Illinois dealt a major blow to Nebraska in their seven-point win at home.
We can’t say we weren’t expecting it. Although the Illini have had a slow start to the season, there’d always been the suspicion that Justin Spring was hiding something, waiting to unleash the true potential of his team. What we saw on Saturday was a team that should be contending for a Big Ten title, a notable change from how they finished a week earlier against Minnesota.
Illinois had a big first rotation on floor, taking the top four places with scores over 14. Senior Sebastian Quiana led the floor squad with a 14.3.
The lead the Illini carved out on floor carried them throughout the meet, and it definitely helped blunt the cost of their horse performance. Their 65.1 was better than Nebraska’s showing on the event but still nowhere near their potential. Michael Paradise was an exception, but his 14.1 was still far from where he should be scoring.
Illinois swept the podium on rings with a 14.5 from Danny Graham (who’s having a phenomenal season) and a 14.1 from Max Diab. On vault, Diab managed to stick his Kas 1.5 once again to win the event title with a 14.8. Quiana added another title on parallel bars with a 13.85, and Hamish Carter finished with an 81.3 all-around.
The Illini improved on their rough parallel bars performance a week earlier, but they still struggled there, trailing Nebraska by about a point. They were also behind Nebraska on high bar, but by that point it didn’t matter.
Illinois put the Big Ten on watch. They’re in Huff Hall once again this weekend, taking on Springfield.
Nebraska looked like an entirely different team from the one we saw at home the week before when they started their meet on horse last Saturday. There were big expectations of the upstart squad and they simply couldn’t deliver on them.
Pommel horse was a high point in Nebraska’s big win over Iowa. Against Illinois, it cost them severely. They scored a 63.4 for a season-low by over four points. They were making uncharacteristic mistakes — they had multiple issues with dismounts — and were forced to count two 11s.
Their deficit increased after floor, but vault was better with only one counting score below 14. Charlie Giles put down a beautiful Yurchenko 2.5 to score a 14.75. Their 71.05 was a season-high on the event.
Parallel bars and high bar were also solid for the Huskers, although neither was an improvement from the meet before. Evan Hymanson tied with Quiana for the parallel bars title and with teammate Griffin Kehler (13.7s) for the high bar crown.
Nebraska is off this weekend and will look to iron out the kinks. They have a big matchup at home against Minnesota and Army on Feb. 15.
Army @ Navy
Navy once again extended their streak of strong meets last weekend, beating Army 404.4-380.9 at home.
The Midshipmen’s only season-high came on rings. Their 67.7 there was led by Josh Williams (14.15), Ryan McVay and Ryan Orce (13.65s), and Jake Carlson (13.3). They secured individual event titles on every other event except for parallel bars and had the top team score on all six.
Also earning titles for Navy were Ben Provost (FX, HB — 13.9, 13.8), David Toussaint (FX, V — 13.9, 14.6) and Carlson (PH — 13.9).
Army’s 380.9 was a slight decline from their 382.65 at Springfield the week earlier. They weren’t able to secure any season-highs, and their only event title was won by Mathew Davis on parallel bars with a 13.5. Army had no other gymnast in the top-three on an event.
Navy and Army travel to San Antonio for the All-Academy Championships this weekend.
NorCal United @ SC United
SC United took down NorCal United by just four tenths this past weekend. Troy Mendelson had an impressive performance in the all-around where he took the title with a 73.75. Will Ryan took two event titles for NorCal with a 13.55 on vault and a 13.2 on parallel bars. These two will face off again in two weeks.
