Week 6 #NCAAMGym Recap
Michigan and Nebraska @ Illinois
The main question heading into the most anticipated competition this year was how the two week pause would impact Michigan’s performance. Both Illinois and Nebraska had the best opportunity they were going to get to shake up the Big Ten with an upset victory over the Wolverines. This question and more were answered. Michigan came away with a dominant victory, solidifying themselves as the best team in the conference and legitimate NCAA title contenders.
One thing that has become clear over the past decade or so, if you want to win a National Championship, you need to have at least one transcendent talent. It looks like Michigan may have two that fit the build. Paul Juda and Cameron Bock have been outstanding early on in 2021. The pair placed first and second in the all around (Juda - 85.60, Bock - 84.20) to go along with four event titles between the two.
Juda won floor (14.65), pommel horse (14.20), and rings (14.50), while Bock took the parallel bars title (14.10). Michigan’s competitive advantage beyond this duo may lie in their ability to beat the rest of the country on rings by a wide margin. Their 69.20 is the highest mark of the season thus far and only OU’s mark of 68.50 comes close.
After a couple of tough losses, Illinois bounced back to take second in the tri-meet with a season high 405.55. They were paced by Hamish Carter, who had arguably his best competition since joining the NCAA. Carter placed third in the all-around behind the Michigan duo with an 83.55 to go along with a first place finish on high bar (14.40). Michael Fletcher also had a great day, competing on five events and averaging a 13.24.
Many were starting to doubt Illinois’ ability to keep up with the Big Ten while Clay Stephens remains on the sideline, however, their win over Nebraska proves that they can still compete. As long as Stephens remains out, Head Coach Justin Spring is going to need Carter and Fletcher to continue producing at a high level as they did this past weekend.
Nebraska finished in third place with a 401.60, their lowest team total so far this season. Despite this disappointing performance, expect the Huskers to bounce back strong. Their roster is loaded with talent from the freshmen class all the way through the seniors. One red flag, however, was raised this past weekend that should not be overlooked. Nebraska posted a 62.70 on rings, almost five and seven points behind Illinois and Michigan respectively. They have struggled on this event historically and will need to find a way to overcome this weakness if they want to remain competitive with some of the best teams.
Freshman, Taylor Christopulos, had a great day once again. Christopulos won the vault title with 14.70 to pace Nebraska to a meet high 72.40 on the event. Jake Bonnay returned to the high bar lineup to score a 13.35 as this team still awaits the return of All-American, Khalil Jackson. Although this third place finish removes them from regular season champion contention, Nebraska proved that they are capable if they can bolster their rings rotation.
Cal vs. Springfield (Virtual)
Cal (387.30) came out of the gates swinging this week to take down Springfield (369.95) in the Pride’s season opener. Both teams showed immense potential and fought it out until the end. Yu-Chen Lee, Noah Newfeld, and Caleb Rickard continue to hold the fort down for Cal, accounting for a combined 16 routines. Lee won floor (14.00), rings (13.20) and parallel bars (13.80) in a dominant showing. Newfeld took the all-around title (77.90) yet again, placing 3rd on pommel horse (13.35), 2nd on rings (12.80) , 2nd on parallel bars (13.30) and 2nd on high bar (12.75), showing how crucial he is to JT Okada’s Bear’s. Captain Caleb Rickard came away with the vault title (14.20).
Cal historically has struggled on pommel horse but this week they turned that stigma on its head as Will Lavanakul took the pommel horse title (14.25), Aiden Li took 2nd (13.40), and as mentioned above, Newfeld took 3rd to sweep the podium on that event. This was by far Cal’s best performance this year, and there is still room to grow for this young Golden Bear team as we get deeper into the season.
Springfield did a phenomenal job in their debut this year nearly cracking 370. Led by Senior Captain Trevor Lamberton, with a 12.35 4-event average, and supported by a strong freshman class, highlighted by Charles Kramer who took 2nd on vault (13.95). Sophomore Dominic Ramalho advanced the cause for Springfield with a 3rd place finish on both floor (12.70) and rings (12.75). Another bright spot for Springfield was the pommel horse routine from freshman Colton O’Brien, who attempted a very difficult set and came away in 4th place (13.05). As the Pride get more time to train and to give their freshmen some experience, this team will undoubtedly increase their overall score.
Stanford vs. Navy (Virtual)
Riley Loos. If there is one takeaway from Wednesday’s matchup between the Cardinal and the Midshipmen, it’s that Riley Loos has turned on the jets and is prepared to take on the NCAA. Mr. Loos led Stanford (398.25) to a victory over Navy (384.3) by blowing out the field in the all-around competition with an all-around score of 83.00. Some of Riley’s highlights were his vault (14.80) and rings (14.50) performances. The vault he competed has a difficulty value of 15.6 and is rarely seen even in international competition – he executed it with impeccable precision. His display of strength and command of the rings was awe inspiring. He won the event by over a point.
Although Loos was the star of the show, there’s more to the story. Stanford is still with just nine gymnasts in their lineup and even without depth, the Cardinal nearly broke the 400 mark. In addition, as a team, Stanford won every event and an athlete from Stanford came away with the title on every event except for high bar. Blake Wilson won floor (14.15), JR Chou won pommel horse (13.40), Loos won rings (14.50) and vault (14.80), and Blake Sun won parallel bars (13.75). Stanford might lack some depth right now, but even with their nine-man team they are putting up some huge scores and are showing an ability to challenge the top teams in the country without many of their best athletes. At the rate that Stanford is improving, OU’s position atop the rankings is becoming more and more precarious.
Yes, Navy lost, but head coach Kip Simons still has a lot to be happy about. It seems like Navy put up a lot of young faces to give some rest to their veterans after an All-Academy Championship victory just days prior to this contest. At least four athletes made their Navy debut (Ian Dinmore, Brandon Fritz, Matthew Rosendahl, and John Wendebron), which gave those young guys much needed experience. There were also some big performances out of the veterans of this Navy squad. Giovanni Gambatese had an impressive day on vault (14.00) and high bar (13.40), the latter of which he won. Although the overall score for Navy might be lower than what they are capable of, it was nice to see some different guys step up and lead the Midshipmen to a solid outing. Navy is a team to watch out for and the teams hanging at the bottom of the Big Ten standings will need to step it up or face the potential of being shown up by the Midshipmen.
Army vs. Springfield (Virtual)
Army 377.0000, Springfield College 370.4000 (Virtual)
In their fourth virtual meet of the season, Army posted their second best score of the year (377.00) to take down Springfield College. Struggles on pommel horse and high bar persisted, keeping the Black Knights from breaking the 380 mark. It was an off-meet for Mathew Davis relative to his standards, but help came from his teammates to keep Army on pace.
Davis was still able to capture both the rings (13.15) and parallel bars (13.30) titles despite the slow day. Benjamin Guerrieri stepped up on floor to take first place with a 13.05. Michael Aquino’s handspring double front on vault was good enough for a 13.90 and the title. Kalvin Kingshill took the final first place finish with his 12.25 performance on high bar. The Black Knights seem to be trending in the right direction and will have a couple weeks of rest before picking back up on March 6th.
The second meet of the week for Springfield went slightly better than the first, improving their team score by just under five tenths. With the loss of Stephen Lewis, it looks like Dominic Ramalho will be getting more opportunities in the all-around. Ramalho took second in the meet with a 74.35, almost three points better than his performance on Wednesday. Colton O’Brien’s 13.25 on pommel horse was good enough to give the Pride their lone title of the day.
Springfield’s start to their 2021 season is showing promise early on. Two consistent scores around the 370 mark sets a solid floor for this team. It will be difficult for them to get back into the high 380s they were scoring last year without the aforementioned Lewis, but they should see continued improvement throughout the season as more routines return to the lineup.
Penn State @ Iowa
Penn State 393.5500 @ Iowa 398.8500
Iowa secured an unexpected victory this week by beating Penn State by over five points. The key difference maker for Iowa in this competition was the consistent performances from five all arounders, all of whom scored higher than a 77.60. Evan Davis led the way for the Hawkeyes scoring an 80.50. He was followed by Bennet Huang who scored a 79.05 and also came out of the competition with the floor and parallel bar titles. The weakest point of the competition for the Hawkeyes was high bar where they were only able to post a team score of 64.05. However, every other event they put up consistent team scores. Although consistency is imperative for a successful team performance, it only can go so far if it is not backed by difficulty. The Hawkeyes haven’t been able to prove their dominance on any one event yet and they are going to need to if they want to be in the running as one of the best teams in the Big Ten.
Penn State had a sub-par performance (393.550), over 10-points lower than their previous week’s showing. As a team, they weren’t able to put up a consistent run on any event with the exception of vault. Matt Cormier and Michael Jaroh placed 1st and 2nd on vault with scores of 14.60 and 14.40. Luckily, the Nittany Lions were able to have a few successful individual performances. Jack Baldwin won pommel horse for Penn State with a 13.45 and Parker Clayton was able to win the rings title for another week in a row with a 14.00.
This was definitely not the Penn State team we have seen the past few weeks. Hopefully, the Nittany Lions are just working through some mid season jitters. Even so, they are going to have to make adjustments quickly as they are soon heading into the later half of the season. They have the chance to redeem themselves this weekend in a virtual competition against Navy.
Navy @ William & Mary
Navy 395.6000 @ William & Mary 385.4500
Navy was able to secure another victory this week with a win over William & Mary. The Midshipmen continued to struggle on parallel bars and high bar but consistent scores on the other events helped them secure a 395.600, their highest score of the season.
Josh Williams and David Toussaint took charge at the beginning of the competition on the floor exercise, posting a 14.50 and 14.35 respectively. This put the Midshipmen on course for the rest of the competition. On the pommel horse, Navy was able to put up four scores above a 12.95. This type of consistency along with some fine tuning is going to pay big dividends in the later competitions of the season. The Midshipmen also had success from event winners Jake Carlson (SR - 13.25), Travis Keller (PB - 13.55), and Giovanni Gambatese (HB - 13.60). We know from last year that Navy has the potential to break into the 400s and once they do so, they will be looking to pass up many teams in the B1G.
Although it wasn’t quite enough for a win, William & Mary had a successful performance against Navy this past weekend. In just one week of training, W&M was able to start executing more of their routines which greatly benefited their team score. They were able to surpass their score from the previous week by over 6-points. Where the Tribe shined this week was on the floor exercise and parallel bars. They improved their team floor score by nearly three points and parallel bars by nearly two points. Ian Creelman was able to add to the team's success by winning the competitions vault title with a 14.10. Andrew Lyubovsky’s second place finish on parallel bars (13.45) and high bar (13.20) also contributed to the Tribe’s success. If W&M continues this improvement on a weekly basis, we can potentially see them hit the 400 mark by the end of the season.
Contributions from Bailey Perez, Max Soifer, and Ben Cooperman.