MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Finishing with a strong routine on the rings, Stanford won its first national title since 1995 in the NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Championships on Friday night.
Oklahoma sophomore Steven Legendre won the individual all-around title.
The top-seeded Cardinal went into the final round trailing California by 1.100 but scored a 61.800 overall on the rings, one of the three events in which they are top-ranked in the nation. Stanford also took first in the parallel bars.
For most of the final rotation, five of the six teams remained within around five points of each other, with positions changing by the second. The top four teams finished within 1.650 points of each other with Michigan, the fourth-seed, making a last-second jump to second-place.
“That’s the great thing about this sport: you never know who the winner is going to be until that last guy in that last event,” head coach Thom Glielmi said. “It’s a lot of fun.”
Ranked No. 1 for most of the season, and in the top-three of every event, the Cardinal breezed through the qualifying round but needed all of their points on the rings to edge Michigan. They were sparked by four scores of 15.350 or better on the rings, as well as a vault score of 15.950 from sophomore Tim Gentry.
And despite the long drought of national championships, it was the fourth straight top-three finish for Stanford. They suffered a major disappointment last year, coming into the tournament ranked No. 1 and hosting it in their own arena, but took runner-up to Oklahoma.
“Last year there was a lot of pressure on them,” Glielmi said. “We’d been getting better year after year, but they were never in a position where they were the team to beat. That’s a whole new experience coming in there with a target on your head. It was a lesson they just had to learn.”
Senior Sho Nakamori, a finalist for the Nissen-Emery Award for the nation’s top male gymnast, scored more than 15 on three events and led Stanford in the floor event.
“The strength of this team is depth,” Glielmi said. “Some of the guys had some breaks or falls, but generally our top six guys can put together four solid routines and the difficulty is high. They knew that coming in, so there was never an issue of feeling they were out of it.”
Legendre took first place in the floor exercise and vault, and he edged out California’s Ishino by 0.5 points for the all-around title.
“Obviously it feels pretty good to win that, and it’s nice when you’re hard work pays off, but it’s overshadowed at this point,” Legendre said. “But I guess we just weren’t the best team out there.”
Last season, he became the first Oklahoma freshman to win national championships in multiple events, and on Thursday night recorded the highest single score of any gymnast in the tournament so far: a 16.35 on the vault.
The championships in individual competitions will be held Saturday night, and Legendre will be in the running for titles in the floor, vault and horizontal bar events.
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