Sooners Prepare For Title Defense

NORMAN, Okla. The University of Oklahoma men's gymnastics team will start its NCAA National Title defense on April 2 in Champaign, Illinois. On Tuesday the two qualifying sessions of the NCAA Qualifiers were announced with the Sooners landing in the afternoon session. The Sooners (17-1) will enter the meet ranked No. 2 in the nation for the fifth consecutive week.

Oklahoma will have their hands full with No. 3 Penn State, No. 6 Iowa, No. 7 Michigan, No. 9 UIC and No. 12 Army starting at 1 p.m. (CST) on April 2.

OU is coming off their first defeat since March 9, 2002 after finishing second in the 2004 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships with a 219.600 behind California's 220.225. Before the MPSF meet, the Sooners had rattled off 52 straight victories.

Complete list of team and individual qualifiers

“With a week and a half before our NCAA preliminaries we already are practicing hard to fix some of the troubles we had during the conference title meet,” said Oklahoma head coach Mark Williams. “In fact, we had a pretty good practice today and the guys looked good and were displaying more confidence.

“Like expected, we kept our No. 2 ranking this week and landed in the afternoon session. This team is looking forward to the challenge of competing against Penn State and Iowa among others. I have said this before but come April 2 we will have the luxury of starting on the floor exercise since we are the highest seed in our bracket. That will give us more of a traditional rotation which will in turn create almost a home environment for us. We are hoping that will enable us to set the tone for the next day.”

In the later session, the host and current-No. 1 Illinois will battle with No. 4 California, No. 5 Ohio State, No. 8 Stanford, No. 10 Nebraska and No. 11 Minnesota at 7 p.m. (CST).

The top three teams from each session will then take the floor on April 3 for the 2004 NCAA National Championship at 7 p.m. (CST) and then the individual finals will be held on April 4 at 2 p.m. (CST).

With the exception of UIC, Penn State and Army, the Sooners have defeated each of the remaining eight teams in the current season. That includes defeating two No. 1 ranked teams at the time of competition and one No. 2 team. On March 6 in Norman, OU recorded the NCAA scoring record (225.200) against the Fighting Illini and on February 13 in Columbus, Ohio, the Sooners knocked off then-No. 1 Ohio State and then-No. 2 California.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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