Rowell & Gore Capture MPSF Individual Titles

PALO ALTO, Calif. A day after finishing second in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Team Championships hosted by Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif., nine Sooners competed in the individual finals on Saturday, March 20. The nine individuals (most by any team) qualified after finishing in the top eight in their respective events on Friday. Senior co-captain Quinn Rowell and junior Josh Gore were the Sooners' top performers with Rowell winning the high bar and Gore the parallel bars.

Among those who qualified by finishing in the top eight on Friday were: Jock Stevens (floor, parallel bars and vault), Heath Mueller (floor, vault), Brian Carr (pommel horse), Jamie Henderson (pommel horse, still rings), Brian Trause (pommel horse and parallel bars), David Henderson (still rings, vault, high bar), Josh Gore (parallel bars), James Myers (high bar) and Quinn Rowell (high bar).

Complete Results

Things got started on the floor exercise and pommel horse and the Sooners came out strong with freshman Brian Carr and senior Jock Stevens putting up solid scores. Stevens came in the conference champion on the floor in 2002 and finished third with a 9.212 behind Graham Ackerman of California (9.585) who won the event. Carr placed second in his first postseason collegiate appearance. Carr led all scorers up till the last competitor with his 9.200 on the pommel horse but Cal's Michael Ashe scored a 9.337 to surpass the frosh.

Still rings and vault followed for OU and sophomore Jamie Henderson and junior David Henderson finished second and third respectively on the rings. Both All-Americans on the rings in prior seasons, Jamie posted a 9.650 and David a 9.562, unfortunately both were just short of Cal's Jay Yee (9.662). On the vault, senior co-captain Heath Mueller placed with a 9.237 that landed him in second place.

In the final rotation (high bar and parallel bars), six chances remained for the Sooners to capture an individual MPSF title and Rowell and Gore stepped up to the challenge. Rowell, ranked No. 3 in the nation on the high bar, scored a 9.487 to outpace the rest of the field. His closest competitor was David Eaton from Cal (9.200).

Gore, ranked No. 3 in the nation on the parallel bars, maintained his season-long consistency on the apparatus with a 9.187 and was followed by teammate senior Brian Trause (8.962).

“My hat goes off to Quinn Rowell and Josh Gore for winning their first MPSF individual titles,” said Oklahoma head coach Mark Williams. “Both of them did a great job this season being on top of the rankings all season in those events and they were able to put it all together in the finals. It is a great accomplishment to be a conference champion.”

In last year's conference meet, three Sooners captured individual honors (Stevens-vault, Josh Landis-horse and Daniel Furney-all around).

The OU men will return to Norman and have two weeks to prepare to defend its 2002 and 2003 national titles on April 2, 3 and 4 in Champaign, Illinois.

Added Williams: “With a week and a half before our NCAA preliminaries I am hoping we can go back home and smooth out some areas that we had trouble with during the team portion of this meet. We will get in the couple last repetitions that are needed in order to feel comfortable and look forward to the challenge of competing in the first round of qualifying. It looks like we should keep our No. 2 ranking which means we will be in the afternoon session. So we will decide to go in Olympic order (floor as the first event) and have more of a traditional rotation that will give us the familiar feel of a home meet.”

Rowell & Gore Capture MPSF Individual Titles

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