OU Sets NCAA Record Total
Feb. 17, 2015 MPSF Men's Gym Release 6
No. 1 OKLAHOMA turned in a meet which NCAA Men's Gymnastics had never seen. It happened this past Saturday (Feb. 14) against defending national champion Michigan. The Sooners accumulated an unthinkable NCAA record total 456.400 in their home opener, comfortably ahead of No. 5 Michigan (439.600). New OU program team records were achieved on floor (76.650), pommel horse (76.150), still rings (76.500) and high bar (77.050), and second-best program scores were on vault (75.050) and parallel bars (75.000). No other team in the history of NCAA Men's Gym has gone 75-plus in every event, while no other team has ever totaled 450. Individual highlights included Michael Reid on horse (career and MPSF record 15.950, T-1st in NCAA 2015), Mike Squires on rings (16.300, T-2nd in MPSF history), Colin Van Wicklen on vault (career-high 15.500), William Clement on high bar (15.800), and Kanji Oyama all-around (career and 2015 NCAA-High 91.000).
No. 3/4 STANFORD Akash Modi broke the NCAA Parallel Bars all-time record at home this past Friday (Feb. 13) against Arizona State. The Cardinal cruised to a season-best total and victory, 442.000-407.550, highlighted by Modi's 16.150 mark on p-bars. The previous NCAA record on that event was set on March 28, 2014 with a 16.100. Brian Knott earned wins on pommel horse (15.450) and high bar (14.950), while Michael Levy claimed wins on floor (15.050) and rings (14.950). Sean Senters remained undefeated on vault this season (15.350), while sharing the floor title (15.050). Stanford also won every team event score, with a high on p-bars of 75.600.
No. 10 AIR FORCE tallied the fourth-best total in team history (427.750) in winning its fifth consecutive All-Academy Championship Meet over Army (413.000) and Navy (410.200) in Houston, TX (Feb. 7). Aaron Nubine tied the Falcon record on floor (15.400) to win the event by over a half point, while also winning vault with a career-high 14.750. Tim Wang took down his own program record on pommel horse with a winning 15.350. Dennis Aurelius placed first on rings (14.900), as did Greg Chaput on parallel bars (14.550). Arinn Wade hit a career-high 15.000 on horse, placing second to Wang, and becoming the second-ever Falcon gymnast to reach that mark in the event.
No. 6/7 CALIFORNIA Kevin Wolting (87.100) and Kyle Zemeir (86.350) were the top-two all-arounders as the Bears (421.300) won a tri-meet in Tacoma, WA over Arizona State (405.300) and Washington (394.650) on Feb. 7. Cal's top event in the meet was the vault, totaling a meet-high 73.650, led by Wolting's first-place 15.300. He went on for another win on parallel bars (14.600). Zemeir won floor with a career-high (15.250), and Gagik Gharibyan was the high bar victor (14.500).