OU Hits the Road for Tri-Meet at Nebraska

THE MEET

No. 2 Oklahoma returns to the road this weekend after three straight weeks at home. The Sooners will compete in a tri-meet Friday against No. 3 Nebraska and Simpson College at the Devaney Center in Lincoln, Neb. The meet will begin at 7 p.m.

FOLLOW ALONG

The competition will be televised on Big Ten Network Plus. Live scoring will be available via OUStats.com.

STICKS

• Freshman Ignacio Yockers has been recognized with MPSF and CGA awards in each of the last three weeks. This week, he was named Specialist of the Week by both the conference office and the coaches association. He was named MPSF Freshman of the Week on Feb. 1 and Feb. 7, CGA Specialist of the Week on Feb. 2 and Rookie of the Week on Feb. 8. Last weekend, the Tulsa, Okla., product turned in what OU head coach Mark Williams described after the meet as "probably one of the best pommel horse routines that any OU gymnast has ever done."

• Yockers' 15.100 pommel horse routine was the highest pommel score in the country this season (by two-tenths of a point), and was Oklahoma's highest pommel horse since 2017. He leads the nation in pommel horse average (14.425). In his last three meets, Yockers has registered scores of 14.800, 14.600 and 15.100 on pommel horse.

• Oklahoma leads the nation in three events: floor exercise (69.875 average; 1.55 points higher than the second-best team), pommel horse (68.388; 1.85 points higher than second place) and high bar (67.100). OU also ranks second nationally in vault average (71.550), third in parallel bars (67.375) and sixth in still rings (66.663).

• Fifth-year senior Vitaliy Guimaraes leads the nation in floor average (14.383), and the Sooners have four of the top six individual floor averages in the country this season. Fifth-year senior Spencer Goodell ranks fourth (14.200), senior Jack Freeman (14.188) and Emre Dodanli (14.088). Goodell's 14.900 last week was the best floor score in the nation this season.

• On pommel horse, junior Zach Nunez ranks third with a 14.362 average and sophomore Raydel Gamboa ranks fifth by averaging a 13.667 score.

• Junior Dan Simmons' 14.850 vault last week was his second straight stick in as many weeks (he scored a 15.050 on the same vault on Feb. 4). Dodanli ranks eighth nationally in vault average (14.475) and Guimaraes (14.437) sits just outside the top 10 by one one-thousandth of a point.

• Guimaraes paces the Sooners on parallel bars and ranks fifth nationally by averaging a 13.900 score, while Nunez ranks eighth with a 13.762 average.

• Freshman Kelton Christiansen ranks fourth nationally in high bar average (13.725) and his high of 14.000 (hit twice) is ninth-best in the country. Dodanli ranks 11th in average (13.400) and Freeman's best high bar score (14.400) ranks as third-best in the nation this year.

• Nunez has notched two of the top four all-around scores in the nation this season. He posted an 83.400 on Feb. 4 against Simpson and an 83.550 last weekend against Stanford and William & Mary. He is the only Sooner so far this season to compete in the all-around.

LAST TIME OUT

Oklahoma registered its best all-around score since 2019 (418.900) to take down No. 1 Stanford (413.800) and No. 11 William & Mary (380.750) last Saturday night in front of a crowd of 1,773 at McCasland Field House. The Sooners remained unbeaten in the field house since 2007, a streak of 59 consecutive meets.

Junior Zach Nunez recorded an 83.550 in the all-around and freshman Ignacio Yockers scored an incredible 15.100 on pommel horse to lead Oklahoma to the victory on its annual Cleveland Night. OU's 418.900 was its highest team score since posting a 420.500 at the 2019 MPSF Championships.

The Sooners won three events – floor exercise (70.700), pommel horse (71.250) and high bar (68.450) – notching season-best scores on four events (floor, horse, still rings [67.750] and parallel bars [68.900]). Oklahoma eclipsed 70 points on floor and pommel horse for the first time this season and scored better than 70 on three events (also vault; 71.850).

In all, OU gymnasts tallied 15 season-best individual scores and set or matched 10 individual career highs.

UPCOMING SCHEDULE

Following this weekend's meet, OU takes a break in the NCAA schedule for Winter Cup, which will be held Feb. 24-26 in Louisville, Ky.

The Sooners return home for a matchup against Michigan on March 4 at 6 p.m., travel to Columbus, Ohio, on March 11 to face Ohio State and Penn State before closing the regular season at California on March 18.

The MPSF Championship will be held April 1 in Colorado Springs, Colo. The NCAA qualifier and Championships will be held April 14-15 in University Park, Pa.