No. 2 OU Visits No. 3 Penn State Sat.

No. 2 Oklahoma at No. 3 Penn State
Date	Saturday, March 22 at 6 p.m. CDT
Location	University Park, Pa. \| Rec Hall
Online	Live Scoring

NORMAN, Okla. -- Moving up one spot to second in the latest GymInfo poll released on March 17, the Oklahoma men's gymnastics team wraps up its regular season with a visit to defending national champion Penn State on March 22. The Sooners and third-ranked Nittany Lions will square off at 6 p.m. CDT inside Rec Hall on the Penn State campus.

"We're looking forward to the challenge of competing against one of the top teams in the nation," said OU head coach Mark Williams. "Penn State always puts together a quality meet and they're very tough to beat at home."

The two teams last faced off in last year's NCAA Championships held at Rec Hall. In a heated competition that came down to the final event, the host Nittany Lions were able to outpace the Sooners to claim a 221.000-220.200 victory and deny Oklahoma a third straight national title.

OU enters this weekend's matchup as the hottest team in the country after posting an NCAA-best 364.600 team total in a Senior Night win over No. 8 Minnesota on March 15. Oklahoma also recorded a nation-leading vault score of 64.450 against the Golden Gophers and set program marks on the floor exercise (62.050), still rings (62.100) and parallel bars (61.200).

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Notes

Senior co-captain Jonathan Horton has also turned up the heat as the postseason nears. Against Minnesota, Horton nabbed his second all-around title of the season with a personal-best 92.450 and claimed individual event crowns on rings (16.050), p-bars (15.650) and high bar (15.300).

"We want to be one of those teams that's capable of peaking at the end of the year," Williams said. "This meet is a great opportunity for us to get prepared for the conference and national championships."

Penn State enters Saturday night's contest following just its second setback of the year, a 360.400-351.300 defeat at No. 4 California on March 15. The Nittany Lions will be looking to rebound from their lowest score of the season with a strong performance against Oklahoma on Senior Night for Nissen-Emery Award finalist Derek Helsby, returning All-Americans Vladi Klurman, Santiago Lopez and Tommy Ramos, and fifth-year senior Brad Spicer.

Oklahoma and Penn State have accounted for the last six NCAA team championships and seven of the last eight. OU won back-to-back national titles in 2002-2003 and 2005-2006, while PSU claimed the crown in 2000, 2004 and 2007.

Men's Gymnastics Notes

What's next
After wrapping up its regular season on the road at third-ranked Penn State on March 22, the Sooners will have two weeks off prior to the MPSF Championships in Lincoln, Neb., on April 5.
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Records smashed on Senior Night
Talk about going out with a bang. On Senior Night for Jonathan Horton and Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons, Oklahoma turned in a number of record-breaking performances. The Sooners set program marks with their team (364.600), floor (62.050), rings (62.100), vault (64.450) and p-bars (61.200) scores. OU's team and vault totals were also the highest by any NCAA team in 2008.
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Horton a Nissen-Emery finalist
Jonathan Horton was named one of seven finalists for the 2008 Nissen-Emery Award, given annually to the nation's most outstanding senior NCAA men's gymnast.

Oklahoma and Penn State lead the nation with five Nissen-Emery winners apiece. The last Sooner to claim the prize was Daniel Furney in 2003.
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Stats masters
When your team is ranked third in the nation, it's fair to say that you have a team full of solid individual performers. The GymInfo individual event rankings seem to back up that statement.

In the latest rankings released on March 17, Oklahoma gymnasts accounted for 18 top-20 event rankings. The Sooners lead all teams with five top-20 gymnasts on vault, while OU's three top-20 p-bars and rings competitors are second-most in the nation.
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West coast wonder
Competing in the all-around for the first time in 2008, Jonathan Horton was a one-man record-breaking machine at the Pacific Coast Classic. Horton set then-personal bests on every event besides p-bars and high bar and recorded program marks in the all-around (91.150), on pommel horse (14.750) and on rings (15.950).
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Anything you can do, I can do better
Apparently strong competition brings out the best in Jonathan Horton, as the senior played a bit of "one-upmanship" at the Pacific Coast Classic. During OU's first rotation on the pommel horse, sophomore Corey English shattered Jason Laughton's team season high with a 14.600, the highest score on the apparatus for a Sooner gymnast by 0.350 points. The record didn't last long, however, as three turns later Horton set a new standard with a 14.750.

The team record holder on rings (14.750) going into the PCC, Horton saw classmate Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons stake claim to the top spot with an impressive 15.900. Not one to give up his record easily, Horton came right back with a 15.950 on the next turn to reclaim the Sooner rings mark.

Impact Performer

Jonathan Horton | Sr. | All-Around
Horton seems to be hitting his stride at the perfect time for the second-ranked Sooners. With postseason competition looming, Horton turned in his best performance of the year in Oklahoma's home finale against No. 8 Minnesota on March 15.

The senior co-captain won the all-around, rings, parallel bars and high bar titles against the Golden Gophers, setting personal and program marks with his all-around (92.450), rings (16.050) and p-bars (15.650) totals. He also scored a season-high 15.700 on floor to finish second to teammate Steven Legendre (15.800).

Horton a finalist for AAU Sullivan Award
Jonathan Horton is one of five finalists for the 78th James E. Sullivan Award presented by the Amateur Athletic Union. The five finalists will be honored at a banquet at the famed New York Athletic Club in New York City on April 1.

Horton will be joined in NYC by Florida quarterback and 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, Michigan State ice hockey goalie Jeff Lerg, Virginia Tech softball pitcher Angela Tincher, and 61-year-old track and field athlete Philippa Raschker of Marietta, Ga.

Horton is the eighth OU student-athlete to be up for the Sullivan Award and the first to be a finalist since Josh Heupel in 2001. No Sooner has ever taken home the trophy.

Click here to watch highlights of Horton's OU career >>>
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All-around good guy
Sophomore Ian Jackson claimed the all-around title in OU's Feb. 1 win over Nebraska in his first appearance on all six events this season. Jackson posted an 85.400 to best teammate Kyle McNamara (84.900) and Nebraska's Stephen Tetrault. Jackson also took home the title the last time he competed in the all-around, Feb. 16, 2007 against club teams from the universities of Washington and Texas.
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Sooners hogging conference honors
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation has awarded Gymnast of the Week honors 10 times in 2008, and five times the award has gone to a University of Oklahoma gymnast.

Steven Legendre was the conference's first honoree of the season after winning the all-around and floor exercise titles at the Rocky Mountain Open on Jan. 12. The freshman from Port Jefferson, N.Y., earned the distinction again on Jan. 28 after claiming his third consecutive all-around and floor exercise crowns in the Sooners' Jan. 26 upset of then-No. 2 Michigan in Norman.

Jonathan Horton, a two-time MPSF Gymnast of the Year and three-time weekly award winner in 2007, earned two conference honors in three weeks after his performance at the Winter Cup (Feb. 7-9) and his all-around title at the Pacific Coast Classic (Feb. 23), and added another on March 17 following a dynamic Senior Night performance.

Last season, four different OU gymnasts accounted for a total of six MPSF weekly honors.

2008 MPSF Gymnasts of the Week
Jan. 15 - Steven Legendre, Oklahoma
Jan. 12 - Kyson Bunthuwong, California
Jan. 28 - Steven Legendre, Oklahoma
Feb. 4 - Greg Stine, Air Force
Feb. 11 - Jonathan Horton, Oklahoma
Feb. 18 - Kyle Bunthuwong, California
Feb. 25 - Jonathan Horton, Oklahoma
March 3 - Ryan Lieberman, Stanford
March 10 - Tim McNeill, California
March 17 - Jonathan Horton, Oklahoma
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Leading by example
The coaching success of Oklahoma's staff is well-documented. Head coach Mark Williams is a four-time national Coach of the Year and seven-time MPSF Coach of the Year, while assistants Rustam Sharipov and Daniel Furney were national Co-Assistant Coaches of the Year in 2006. Oklahoma's coaches, however, boast their fair share of competitive successes as well.

During his collegiate career at Nebraska, Williams earned All-America honors on high bar in 1978 after winning the Big Eight title on the apparatus. Williams was also a member of two Husker national title teams in 1979 and 1980.

Sharipov, a former parallel bars specialist, took the gold medal on the event at the 1996 Olympics and also won top honors on the apparatus at both the 1996 World and European Championships. Sharipov garnered another Olympic gold medal as a member of the Unified Team in 1992.

Furney, a 2004 OU graduate, was a member of two national championship teams in Norman (2002 and 2003). Furney also won the Nissen Emery Award in 2003 after claiming NCAA titles in the all-around and on parallel bars. During his OU career, Furney accumulated nine All-America honors, including four during the 2003 season.
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Hall of Fame nominates Horton for Gymnast of the Year
Oklahoma's Jonathan Horton is one of seven nominees for the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame 2007 Gymnast of the Year Award. The OU senior won a his second consecutive Tyson American Cup and finished fourth in the all-around at the World Championships last year.

The other nominees are: Fabian Hambüchen (Germany), Jade Barbosa (Brazil), Cheng Fei (China), Hisashi Mizutori (Japan), Shawn Johnson (USA), Mitja Petkovsek (Slovenia), Nastia Liukin (USA), Yang Wei (China) and Steliana Nistor (Romania).
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A Note on the Rankings
The GymInfo rankings are based on the following criteria:

Jan. 21 - February 11: Ranking by Total Season Average (average of all scores)

February 18 - March 17: Ranking by Three Score Average

March 24 - 31: Ranking by Modified Three Score Average (Select the four highest scores, counting no more than two home meet, and drop the highest score. Average the three remaining scores.)

April 7: Ranking by National Qualifying Average
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Winter Cup highlights
Five OU gymnasts competed in the 2008 Winter Cup Challenge in Las Vegas, and all five advanced to the finals competition. Highlighting the Sooners' weekend in the desert were third-place performances by Jonathan Horton on rings and Steven Legendre on floor exercise. Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons tied for fifth on rings, while Ian Jackson made it to the event finals on rings and pommel horse in his Winter Cup debut.

Perhaps the most balanced performance, however, came from Jacob Messina, another Winter Cup newcomer. The Matthews, N.C., native was the only Sooner to finish in the top 20 on every event in which he competed (PH, SR, HB).
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Men land 10 on Big 12 honor roll
Ten members of the men's gymnastics team earned spots on the Big 12 Commissioners's Honor Roll for the Fall 2007 term. Junior health and exercise science major Russell Czeschin was one of 37 OU student-athletes to earn a perfect 4.0 grade point average. The other Sooner honorees were Chris Brooks, Brian Carr, Corey English, C.J. Grimes, Jason Laughton, Steven Legendre, Reed Pitts, Bobby Shortle and Joseph Weaver.
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The upset is an upset
OU's upset of then-No. 2 Michigan on Jan. 26 was an upset in itself. The Sooners, ranked fifth when they knocked off the Wolverines, rarely have the opportunity to beat an opponent ranked higher than they are.

In fact, prior to this year's win against Michigan, the last time OU scored an upset was at the 2007 Pacific Coast Classic. The Sooners, ranked third at the time, won the event defeating five of the nation's top five teams including ... No. 1 Michigan.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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