No. 2 Oklahoma Advances To NCAA Championships

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The University of Oklahoma men's gymnastics team competed in the 2004 NCAA Championship Preliminaries on Friday, April 2, and finished third (217.750) in Session I in Champaign, Ill. No. 2 OU finished behind No. 3 Penn State (218.700) and No. 7 Michigan (218.450) Following the No. 2 Sooners was No. 6 Iowa (216.900), No. 9 UIC (207.775) and No. 12 Army (207.675).

The top three teams advance to Saturday's NCAA Championships and will join the top three teams in Session II taking place at 7 p.m. Friday night. With its third place finish, OU (20-3) will compete tomorrow and defend its 2002 and 2003 NCAA Titles.

Complete Results

“I think we were too conservative today and not aggressive enough,” said Oklahoma head coach Mark Williams. “We have not scored that low (217.750) since the Iowa meet, which was at the beginning of the season. At other times in the season we have struggled but still managed a 219 score but you can not give away two events like we did today (pommel horse and high bar).

“I know this team is better than this and we need to get that fire under them. We need to be more aggressive and emotional and see what happens tomorrow. We had some great individual performances today but we never streamed anything together. We did not perform like a team today and we had a different lineup but that does not excuse our score.”

After beginning the day on a bye, the Sooners started off strong on the floor exercise with a team score of 36.900. That mark was the third highest floor total of the season and was keyed by back-to-back performances by seniors Heath Mueller and Jock Stevens. Mueller, the co-captain, posted a 9.400 setting a career-high for the Yukon, Okla. native. Stevens finished off the first rotation for OU by recording a 9.600. The pommel horse awaited the Sooners next and sophomore Jamie Henderson provided the team-high with a 9.250. OU only managed a 35.250 on the apparatus and sat in fourth place after three rotations, with the Sooners seeing action on two events.

In the fourth rotation, the defending champs competed on the still rings where again Jamie Henderson led the way with a 9.550. As a team, the Sooners scored a 35.895 on the rings bringing their team score up to a 108.450, good for third place. The Sooners only trailed Michigan and Army, two teams that both had four events completed after the fourth rotation.

On vault, Mueller produced another career-high, a 9.475 that was high for the Sooners and their 37.225. Also scoring high for OU was junior David Henderson who tallied a 9.425 moving OU up another spot into second place after five sets with a 145.675. Again, the Sooners found themselves behind Michigan who had a total of 18 after competing on five apparatuses.

The Sooners' best events awaited them with the parallel bars and high bar concluding Friday's action. First, the Sooners scored a 35.350 on parallel bars, an event they rank No. 2 on in the nation. Senior Brian Trause posted a 9.050 to lead the scoring on the apparatus for OU. Going into the final rotation, the Sooners held the second highest score (181.025) behind Penn State's 181.750.

The high bar, an event OU was ranked No. 1 on in the nation, was not enough to propel OU past Penn State and it also allowed Michigan to slip ahead of the Sooners. OU totaled a 36.725 on the apparatus to give them the session's third best score. Jamie Henderson and senior co-captain Quinn Rowell kept OU in contention for the NCAA Championships scoring identical 9.550s.

“We will have our typical lineup tomorrow which will certainly help and we will address some of the problems before the meet,” said Williams. “We will give it 100 percent and put everything on the line and we are still in the hunt for the title. We have proven that we are one of the top teams in the nation this season with some of our performances where we have been on a roll. We just need to be more consistent and tomorrow will be a different story in terms of atmosphere with Illinois and its home crowd inside the arena providing more motivation and energy. In order to be in contention for a title tomorrow we will have to bring a different mindset than what we had today and just focus on what we are capable of.”

The Sooners return to action at 7 p.m. tomorrow and will compete against Penn State, Michigan and the top three teams from Session II.

Live stats from the 2004 NCAA Championships will be posted after each rotation tomorrow starting at 7 p.m. Fans can access this option by clicking here.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

No. 2 Oklahoma Advances To NCAA Championships

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