When I was first asked to write this post, I thought it would be pretty easy. Still on a second-hand high from the competition Saturday night, I tried putting pen to paper. I started and deleted several times. Drafted several different approaches. I even restarted watching the stream of the competition to try and get back into that state of mind. It gets really easy to try and finesse a narrative that puts a bow on the entire season, ties up all loose ends. And going into this meet, it seemed like it was going to be relatively open and shut, even saying that as a Stanford alum. However, the beauty of sports is that nothing is ever as it seems, [...more]
Stanford was down 4.4 points going into the final rotation, but they plowed ahead and posted their highest team SR score of the season (71.131) to win their first NCAA Men's Gymnastics title since 2011. Oklahoma seemed to have a comfortable margin going into their HB rotation. After all, they are the top-ranked team on that event. But things didn't go their way, as they ended up about 3 points below their season average (66.065). That is all Stanford needed to pull off the incredible feat. "The Streak" of four straight NCAA team titles is [...more]
Oklahoma exceeded their season scoring average by over a point, posting team scores of 70-plus on four events to run away with the evening qualifying session. The Sooners (419.191) romped over host Illinois (410.324), Penn State (404.287), Iowa (400.39), Ohio State (399.754) and Army (383.855) to easily become the day's top qualifying team. It was quite a feat to top their season average in the post season, especially with Yul Moldauer competing on only three events. No doubt Coach Mark Williams would likely be happy with a team score of [...more]
The 2019 Big Ten Men's Gymnastics Championships kicked off the first full weekend of the post season. Based on each of the seven teams' overall season averages, less than six points separated the top from the bottom, making this year's contest a virtual free-for-all. Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa shared the regular season title, and it would come as no surprise that a fourth team would rise up and take the post-season crown. Penn State, ranked 3rd in the Big Ten, became that fourth team! [...more]
