No. 3 Sooners Visit Rival Buckeyes

No. 3 Oklahoma at No. 7 Ohio State
Date	Saturday, March 8 at 6 p.m. (CST)
Location	Columbus, Ohio \| St. John Arena
Online	Live Scoring

NORMAN, Okla. - The third-ranked Oklahoma men's gymnastics team travels to Columbus, Ohio, this weekend to take on rival and seventh-ranked Ohio State. The meet is scheduled for a 6 p.m. (CST) start inside St. John Arena on Saturday, March 8.

The Sooners will be looking to avenge last year's regular season loss to the Buckeyes in Norman. Ohio State claimed a 218.650-213.550 victory at McCasland Field House, halting OU's home undefeated streak at seven years. The last team to beat the Sooners in Norman before the streak began? Ohio State on Jan. 28, 2000.

Since OU head coach Mark Williams took over in 2000, the Buckeyes have been one of Oklahoma's chief out-of-conference rivals. Ohio State defeated OU to claim the 2001 NCAA title, and finished second to the Sooners in 2002, 2003 and 2005.

"Ohio State has always been a program that has the same goals as we do," Williams said. "Over the last few years we've had to go through them in order to win national championships, and vice versa."

This weekend's meet is another opportunity for the Sooners to gear up for another championship run against a top-flight opponent. In the team's last meet at the Pacific Coast Classic on Feb. 23, OU recorded its best team score of the season (359.800), as well as season highs on the pommel horse (56.850), rings (62.000) and vault (63.900). Senior Jonathan Horton claimed his first all-around title of the season in his first competition on all six events, but the Sooners suffered their first setback of the year, as they finished second to No. 1 Stanford (361.650).

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Notes

"For us, this weekend's competition is still a part of the building process we're establishing towards the conference championships," Williams said. "I'd like to see improvements on what we did at the Pacific Coast Classic, specifically on parallel bars and pommel horse."

Ohio State is led by head coach Miles Avery, who is in his 11th year with the program. The Buckeyes boast returning All-Americans in seniors D.J. Bucher and Jimmy Wickham from a 2007 team that won its third consecutive Big Ten title and finished eighth at the NCAA Championships.

Saturday night will mark Senior Night for the Buckeyes as they host their final home meet of the 2008 season.

Men's Gymnastics Notes

What's next
After visiting the Buckeyes on March 8, Oklahoma will close out its home season on March 15 against No. 8 Minnesota. The meet will mark Senior Night for co-captains Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons and Jonathan Horton.
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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.
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Higher stakes = higher scores
The field at the 2008 Pacific Coast Classic was the strongest competition OU has faced this season, with all five opponents ranked in the GymInfo top 11 at the time. Against the best teams, the Sooners recorded some of their best scores. OU set season highs for team total (359.800), pommel horse (56.850), rings (62.000) and vault (62.000) en route to a second-place finish.
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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 3, Oklahoma gymnasts accounted for 18 top-20 event rankings. The Sooners lead all teams with five top-20 gymnasts on vault, while OU's four top-20 high bar 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 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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Sooners hogging conference honors
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation has awarded Gymnast of the Week honors eight times in 2008, and four 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).

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

Impact Performer

Bobby Shortle | Fr. | FX, V
A walk-on who has become a key member of the Sooners' floor and vault lineups, Shortle will be returning to his home state as OU takes on the Buckeyes. A native of Brunswick, Ohio, Shortle is Oklahoma's highest-ranked gymnast on the vault, standing seventh in the nation with a 15.917 average. He is also ranked 14th nationally on the floor exercise (15.083).

Only Steven Legendre and Russell Czeschin have recorded higher floor scores for OU in 2008 than Shortle's 15.400 against Nebraska and Air Force on Jan. 20.

All-around good guy
Sophomore Ian Jackson claimed the all-around title in OU's Feb. 1 win over Nebraska in his first appearance of the season 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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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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Vote Horton for AAU Sullivan Award
OU's Jonathan Horton is one of 11 semifinalists for the 78th James E. Sullivan Award presented by the Amateur Athletic Union. The five finalists for the award will be honored at a banquet at the famed New York Athletic Club in New York City on April 1.

Fan votes count one-third toward the final tally, and fans can cast their ballot until March 10 at sports.usatoday.com or on their mobile phones by texting AAUVOTE3 to 44636. You can only vote once; multiple votes will not be counted. Standard carrier text message rates apply.
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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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