Oklahoma gymnastics: Sooner men getting ready for new competition season
By Chip Rouse
The three-time defending national champion men’s Oklahoma gymnastics team is getting ready for another new season of competition.
And they will begin the 2018 competition season as the nation’s preseason No. 1 team, something this group of highly talented young men under head coach Mark Williams have proudly grown accustomed to. It is the fourth consecutive year the Sooner men have been ranked No. 1 in the College Gymnastics Association Preseason Coaches Poll.
The OU men’s squad held its annual Crimson and Cream intrasquad scrimmage this past Saturday at the Sam Viersen Gymnastics Center. Several members of the squad did not participate because they are rehabbing and resting from injuries – including All-American and team leader Yul Moldauer, who is not injured but did not take part in all of the events because Williams elected to rest him after his participation in the World Championships – but those in attendance were able to get a look at some new faces and new routines performed before fans and a panel of judges.
Williams is hoping that he will get some of the guys who are out injured back ahead of the season opening meet, which is at Air Force on Jan. 20.
"“I told them (before the intrasquad scrimmage) that even though we are defending national champions, we haven’t scored any points and we haven’t beat anyone,” Williams said in a press release posted on the OU athletic website.“We’re starting all over (in 2018) more than other years. It’s going to be a work in progress.”"
Oklahoma will begin the new season having gone undefeated in competition for over three years. The Sooner men have won 76 consecutive meets, dating back to the 2014 NCAA Championships. OU finished second to Michigan that season. In addition to its three consecutive national titles, Oklahoma has won six straight championships in the four-team Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, which is made up of teams from Stanford, Air Force and the University of California (Oklahoma is the only school from the Big 12 that competes in men’s gymnastics).
The Sooners lose a couple of key contributors (All-Americans Allan Bower and Colin Van Wicklen) from their 2017 national championship team, but Moldauer, the national champion on still rings and floor exercise a year ago and who earned All-America status in six of his seven events, is back for another season. A junior in class standing, Moldauer is a member of the U.S. Senior National Team. In October, at the World Championships in Montreal, Canada, he won a bronze medal in floor exercise and seventh in the all-around competition.
In addition to Moldauer, the Sooners also return senior Hunter Justus and Reese Rickett and junior Genki Suzuki for the 2018 season. Justus is an All-American on rings and parallel bars; Rickett on rings, and Suzuki on the high bar.
Among the new faces Sooner fans will be hearing a lot about this season are a couple of highly talented freshmen: Alexei Vernyi and Gage Dyer. Vernyi, from Cypress, Texas, was the floor exercise titlist and finished second in the all-around at the 2016 Men’s Junior Olympic National Championships. Dyer, a native Oklahoman from Yukon, is a four-time Oklahoma state champion.
The Sooners will have a difficult schedule to navigate through in defending their national crown. They will face nine teams ranked in the preseason top 12, including road trips to No. 3 Ohio State and No. 5 Illinois. OU will host No. 2 Stanford, No. 6 Nebraska and No. 8 Iowa in home meets.
Williams, in his 19th season coaching men’s gymnastics at Oklahoma, is extremely well known and widely respected in the world of collegiate gymnastics. His Sooner squads have won eight national championships during that time, including three consecutively. In addition to the eight championships, Oklahoma has placed second seven times in the NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Championship under Williams.
Three Oklahoma gymnasts have won the Nissan Emery Award, presented every year to the nation’s best male gymnast, under Williams (Daniel Furney in 2003, Jonathan Horton in 2008 and Steven Legendre in 2011).
Williams was the coach of the U.S Men’s Gymnastics Team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The U.S. men finished fifth in the 2016 Summer Olympics. Three members of that team won individual medals.