Week 9 Recap
Michigan and William & Mary @ Army
As expected, the return of Cameron Bock proved extremely beneficial, as Michigan posted a season high 412.85 at Army on Saturday. Bock was great, competing on three events and capturing a share of the pommel horse title (14.05). The headline from this meet, however, was Paul Juda with the most impressive all-around performance in the NCAA this season thus far.
Juda was flat out dominant, winning six of six events en route to an 86.10 all-around, every single score above the 14 mark. His final stat line:
FX - 14.05, PH - 14.05, SR - 14.05, VT - 14.80, PB - 14.80, HB - 14.35
He was joined by his teammate, Jacob Moore, sharing the floor title. It looks as though Michigan is getting healthy and clicking on the competition floor at exactly the right time. After this performance, it’s tough to imagine anyone touching them at Big Ten Championships.
The host team took a small step back from some of their top performances of the year, scoring a 384.10, still good enough for their third highest mark of the 2022 season. This is especially impressive as they were without Mathew Davis, out resting for the week. Highlights for Army came on high bar, where they posted a big 63.70. Zachary Perez came in second with a 13.35 while Zachary Mitchell finished in third (13.10).
William & Mary rounded out the group of three, proving that their season high performance from a week ago was not a fluke. The Tribe posted a 377.20, their second highest mark of the season and just under three points from their top score. Aidan Cuy had another good day, posting a 77.05 in the all-around to go along with a fourth place finish on high bar (13.00).
Ohio State @ Penn State
After a month-long hiatus, Penn State returned to competition, hosting Ohio State in a Big Ten regular season contest. The Nittany Lions were able to stay within striking distance for much of the meet, but were unable to to come out on top, losing to the Buckeyes 397.20 to 393.90.
On floor, the two teams were evenly matched, each competitor seemingly equal to their respective opponent. Justin Ah Chow finished in third while Robbie Shamp came in fourth, 14.05 to 14.00. Jesse Tyndall took first with Matt Cormier right behind him, 14.45 to 14.20. Despite Penn State’s Chase Clingman taking the pommel horse title (13.65), two scores below the 12.00 mark gave Ohio State a big advantage on the event. Rings was close, Ohio State with just a three tenth advantage over the host team, led by Donovan Hewitt’s 14.20.
The tide turned on vault with the Buckeyes building a healthy lead; Dexter Roettker posted a 14.80 to win the event. Mistakes on p bars, including Jesse Tyndall making an uncharacteristic error in the anchor spot, gave Penn State a chance heading into the final rotation. Ohio State’s lead was under two points with just high bar remaining.
In line with how the Nittany Lion’s season has been going, they were unable to pull off a clean final rotation, counting a fall on a yamawaki. Despite this, they would not have been able to catch their opponent anyways. Ohio State was near perfect, hitting five of five routines, led by Kazuki Hayashi (13.80) and Jesse Tyndall (13.75) to capture yet another win against a Big Ten opponent.
Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota @ Nebraska
After several weeks off, Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota all faced off in this B1G matchup. Nebraska and Illinois stayed tight throughout most of the competition, each team gaining points here and there, but the Huskers reigned victorious with their 408.05 topping the Illini's 405.65. Iowa and Minnesota closed out the competition with a 379.00 and 358.50 respectively.
On floor, Illinois' Hamish Carter and Nebraska's Jake Bonnay tied for the event title with a 14.05 while Connor McCool was close behind with a 13.95. On pommel horse, Ian Skirkey put on a show with a huge 15.30. Once again he added an impressive score to his resume proving that he will be a top pommel horse contender at the B1G and NCAA Championships. His teammate David Pochinka came in second with a 14.10. Although Illinois was able to capture the top two horse scores, a flustered fifth score allowed Nebraska to only close out 0.025 behind them.
On rings, the Illini went one, two on the event once again with Ashton Anaya (14.25) and Logan Myers (14.00) leading the way. The roles reversed on vault with the Huskers' Charlie Giles (15.05) and Donte McKinney (14.70) finishing atop the podium. Iowa's Amari Sewell's 14.65 was enough for third place.
Through parallel bars, a side by side comparison showed Nebraska and Illinois neck and neck. However, once high bar came along, Nebraska was ultimately able to run away with the competition. Sam Phillips (14.10) and Donte McKinney (13.95) strongly contributed to the Huskers’ final push on high bar. The Illini impressively closed high bar in the 1-4 positions, but their fifth man's 10.50 severely hurt them.
In the all-around, Iowa's Evan Davis put up a consistent 80.35 to win the title and his teammate, James Friedman, was close behind with a 79.50. Kellen Ryan led the way for Minnesota with his 75.80.
Air Force and California @ Stanford
Stanford came out swinging this weekend to put up the highest team score this season by nearly four points, scoring a 419 flat. What’s scary is that this Stanford lineup can get even stronger. After a performance like this one, Stanford looks untouchable. While the Cardinal stole the show, Cal also made a statement, scoring above the 390 mark yet again. Air Force Still has some room to improve, barely squeaking past the 380 threshold.
Stanford started off strong on floor with a 69.55 team score. Freshman Nick Kuebler led the charge scoring a 14.60 to take home the title. A few mistakes from veterans down the lineup for Stanford on floor held the cardinal back from breaking 70 on the event. Pommel horse was also solid for Stanford, bringing in a 67.35, led by Cottbus World Cup pommel horse bronze medalist, Brody Malone (14.10). Stanford claimed the top three spots on pommel horse with Blake Sun (13.85), and Nick Kuebler (13.75) taking the final two spots on the podium.
While the first two events were strong, the Cardinal really broke out on rings with a 71.65 – the highest team rings score the nation has seen this year. Thomas Lee (14.65), Mark Berlaga (14.60), and Ian Gunther (14.50) led the way with support from Brody Malone (14.30). These scores would likely be the top scores for any other team, but Stanford is home to all four. Vault is looking to be one of the strongest events as well this season as the Cardinal put up a 71.85 with a missed vault. A slew of clean 5.2 runs kept Stanford in play while standout freshman Khoi Young took home the title with a 5.4 SV vault to win the event (14.85).
At the beginning of the season, Coach Thom Glielmi talked about how excited he was for his parallel bars lineup and this weekend, it did not disappoint. The Cardinal put up a 71.55 on the event and can likely go higher with cleaner routines. Brody Malone captured his second event title of the day with a 14.40. Stanford made big improvements on high bar, which is part of why their team score improved by so much. Brody Malone continued his streak, taking home his third title of the day with a 14.40 to lead Stanford to a 67.05 team score, their highest of the year.
Cal had a solid showing as well. Starting on pommel horse is always a challenge, but the Bears handled it well, putting up a 64.25. Noah Sano was the highest scorer for Cal with a 13.70. This Cal pommel horse lineup is strong and when they have a full slate of hit sets they will be a pommel horse squad that should be feared. Rings was the next event for Berkeley which also went well. A team score of 64.75 led by Yu-Chen Lee’s 13.25 kept the Bears in line with their season averages. Rounding out the first half of the contest on floor, Collin Cunane put up a 13.65 to bring the Bear’s total to 66.15 on the event.
Typically a strong parallel bar’s team, Cal ran into some challenges having to count a 10.95. However, a 14.05 from Landon Wu helped Cal stop the bleeding and recover well. High bar is a tougher event for this team. Low start values and decent execution scores kept all Cal gymnasts below the 13.0 mark leading to a team score of 61.75. Finishing up the meet on a high note on vault brought some wind back into the sails for Cal. A team score of 68.05 capped off by Yu-Chen Lee’s 13.95 brough their team total to 390.50. With improvements on high bar and a clean pommel run, Cal will be right on the doorsteps of Navy, Penn State, and Ohio State come postseason.
Air Force continues to struggle putting up only 380.60 points. This extremely talented team has a very high scoring potential but seem unable to perform the clean and consistent gymnastics necessary to achieve their scoring potential. Sophomore Oliver Zavel took home the all-around crown with a 77.35. Other highlights for the Falcons came from Garrett Braunton who scored a 13.25 on pommel horse for sixth, a 13.95 on vault to tie for fifth, and a 13.25 on high bar for fourth. There is no doubt that this Air Force team is talented enough to match up with Cal, it’s just a matter of doing the gymnastics that will score well enough to defeat the Bears.
This contest was only missing one member of the MPSF Conference and gave a good taste as to what can be expected. Based on scores from this weekend, it looks like the MPSF is very clearly ranked and unless there is a major upset, the results should not be surprising.
Oklahoma and William & Mary @ Springfield
Oklahoma came into Springfield competing against themselves. The Sooners took home the title easily with a 400.90 to defeat William & Mary (377.80) and Springfield (375.95). While Oklahoma captured the title, the story here really is not much about how great everyone performed. Every team in this contest had some highs, but due to a lack of consistency each team scored far below their capabilities. Also to be noted, William & Mary took on their second opponent in as many days, which may have led to a weaker team score.
Oklahoma rested some of their stronger athletes including Fuzzy Benas and Raydel Gamboa, both of whom had big performances at Winter Cup last week. Vitaly Guimaraes did make an appearance but only on three events and likely to give him a few more opportunities to compete after missing out on the beginning of the season due to injury. Highlights for Oklahoma were Emre Dodanli’s 14.50 on floor, Guimaraes’ 14.10 on pommel horse, Daniel Simmons’ 14.35 on vault, and Jack Freeman’s 14.50 on high bar. Some inconsistency led to a much lower team score than we are used to seeing out of the Sooners, but this will likely be corrected easily in the coming weeks.
William & Mary took on this contest knowing that they would be tired after competing at Army the day before. However, the Tribe put up a slightly higher score in Springfield with a 377.80, defeating their previous day’s 377.20. Aidan Cuy led the way with his 76.60 in the all-around to take the title. Other impressive performances from the Tribe were Christian Marsh’s 13.25 on rings in which he performed a triple back dismount and Sam Lee’s 14.00 on vault.
Springfield exhibited the most inconsistent competition out of all of the teams here, their score range on floor was over two points led by Jakarie William’s big 13.90. Pommel horse was not much different. Colton O’brien scored a 13.20 to lead the way for the Pride, only for his teammate to put up an 11.70, a 1.5 point gap. Rings was once again similar. Dominic Romalho showed a solid 13.10 set to make up for a 10.45 that his team had to count.
This slew of missed routines late in the season does not bode well for Springfield as consistency should be a focus with postseason around the corner. Vault was much better as the Pride put up a 69.40 team score on the event. Parallel bars was also solid and kept the Pride close with William & Mary. The biggest struggle of the evening was a counted 7.40 on high bar. An incursion of a three point deduction for missing skills led to this low score in an otherwise relatively solid high bar lineup that was scoring in the mid to high twelve range. Fixing this error alone would put the Pride easily over the Tribe.
Arizona @ SC United
After getting back on track in week eight, Arizona put together an even stronger performance in week nine. Visiting SC United on Saturday, AMG posted a season high 384.75, the second highest score in the GymACT this year. Once again, Jordan Williams (79.45) and Hunter Brunett (77.95) led this team, placing first and second in the all-around respectively.
Arizona has been fantastic this year on pommel horse, where they now rank eleventh in the country, inclusive of the NCAA teams. True to form, they had yet another great horse rotation. Clayton Cunningham led the way with a 13.60 while the rest of the lineup all went 12.55 or better. Parallel bars has been a different story and it hurt them once again this past weekend. One sub-12 score and another below 10 put AMG at 58.55. Weeding out the outliers will significantly raise this group’s ceiling and even put them within striking distance of Iowa. Jackson Harrison dominated on floor and vault again, scoring a 14 flat on each to take both titles.
SC United was quite a ways away from their competitor, but solidified their spot as a top eight team in the conference. They improved significantly on their previous showing, scoring a season high 353.90. Troy Mendelson stepped up as the performer of the day for this team, coming in third in the all-around with a 74.65 while also taking the rings title (13.00). Lorenzo Tassinato also had a good showing, finishing behind his teammate in fifth in the all-around (74.55).
UIC @ Northern Illinois
While the first four teams in the GymACT seem to be solidified, the battle between Temple, SC United, Rocky Mountain, and Northern Illinois for supremacy of the second tier is heating up. Northern Illinois made their claim in week nine, posting their second highest score of the season with a 354.50.
With David Dortmund only competing four events on the day, Micah Puckett stepped up as the lone all-arounder for NIU. Puckett took first with a 74.40 and also won high bar (12.10). Dortmund was great on his four events, winning floor (13.10) and vault (14.20). Zach Cipra took the final event title on the day for the winning team with his 12.10 on rings.
Avery Walwyn was the standout performer for UIC. Walwyn won two events with a 12.90 on pommel horse and a 12.30 on p bars. The Flames had a few outlier scores that hurt their overall team mark; they will look to weed these out in the future to bring them closer to the second tier teams in the GymACT.
Georgia United and NY Alliance (Virtual)
In a rare virtual matchup, NY Alliance bested Georgia United on Saturday. Had GU been able to put up two more routines on high bar, they may have had a chance at an upset. NY Alliance also had trouble filling out lineups, putting them a distance away from their previous season high.
Ethan Rio was the star of the day for the winning team, competing on four events and winning three of them. Ryder Jencik also cashed in a solid performance, competing on five events and averaging an 11.74. Georgia United’s highlights came from Zach English who won rings (12.50) and Jaimin Rasmussen who took the vault title (12.45).
Contributions from Bailey Perez, Max Soifer, and Ben Cooperman.