Oklahoma Men's Gymnasts Post Top Score In NCAA Qualifying

April 11, 2003

Philadelphia - Defending national champion Oklahoma (221.125), Michigan (217.950) and Illinois (217.675) advanced to Saturday's team finals with their performances in Friday evening's qualifying session of the 2003 NCAA Men's Gymnastics National Championships at Temple University's Liacouras Center. The three teams will be joined in the finals by Ohio State (218.600), Penn State (218.575) and Iowa (214.075), who qualified for the team finals earlier in the day.

"I feel fortunate to have advanced when we did not have one of our best days," said OU head coach Mark Williams. "We had some injuries that forced us to rearrange things a bit. We won't really know the status of those guys until warm-ups on Saturday."

Shannon Carrion is fighting back spasms, while Michael Gehart has a sprained ankle and Curtis O'Rorke a torn finger nail, which he suffered on the high bar, OU's final event.

"The rest of our guys picked it up and we still finished three points ahead of the next team so we do have an excellent chance to defend our title," Williams said. "I can't complain. We just had to work real hard to find the right people. Our depth was key."

The Sooners were third in their session after the first two rotations, the floor and pommel horse. Then, a season-long strength, the still rings, rocketed OU into the lead among the night session teams.

"The rings team delivered a 38 and we maintained from there," Williams said.

Saturday night's final could offer more of an emotional lift for OU.

"We may have been a little flat knowing that we just had to qualify," Williams said. "I think we'll really put out total emotion on Saturday. I still have a lot of confidence."

The top three individuals, including ties, on each event and three all-arounders that are not members of the three qualifying teams from each session, also advanced to Saturday's competition. The Saturday session, scheduled from 4:00-7:00 p.m., will consist of team and all-around finals, as well as qualifying for event finals. Six teams and six additional individuals including ties on each event, plus the all-around, make up Saturday's competition.

Saturday's team finals will be televised by ESPN via tape delay from 3:30-5:00 p.m. on Monday, April 14. Chris Marlow will be the play-by-play announcer and Bart Connor will provide the color commentary.

Individual and event finals will take place on Sunday from 2:00-3:30 p.m. The top 10 individuals on each event, including ties, will compete.

Temple is the host for this year's NCAA meet. Complete results and statistics may be found at www.owlsports.com.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Oklahoma Men's Gymnasts Post Top Score In NCAA Qualifying

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