Men’s Oklahoma gymnastics falls short against last year’s No. 1 squad
By Chip Rouse
Stanford ended the four-year national championship reign of men’s Oklahoma gymnastics a year ago, and over the past weekend the Sooners had the opportunity to exact some revenge from the team that dethroned them.
The top-ranked Sooners, who were victorious in the opening meet of the season against No. 9 Ohio State and No. 12 Arizona State at Ohio State, came up short in their rematch with the Cardinal. Stanford defeated OU 420.050 to 408.200 on Saturday in Palo Alto, California.
California, which entered the meet as the new No. 12 team in the country, finished third in the three-team competition.
This was just Oklahoma’s second loss in regular-season competition in six years. Both of those losses occurred in the same season (2014).
Oklahoma finished first in only one of the six team events in the Stanford Open, capturing top honors in floor exercise. The Sooners were led in that event by sophomore Vitaliy Guimaraes, who took individual honors with an NCAA-best score of 15.200 in the event. That topped his previous career best of 14.750.
Freshman Jack Freeman and sophomore Spencer Goodell also posted career-bests in floor exercise.
Oklahoma finished second to Stanford in four events (still rings, vault, parallel bars and high bar), but took third in their final rotation, on pommel horse, arguably the most difficult of the six rotations.
Freshman David Sandro led the Sooners in three events, finishing fourth on the high bar, fifth on the parallel bars and sixth on rings, fifth on the parallel bars and fourth on the high bar.
Freeman and Goodall competed for the Sooners in the all-around competition, placing fifth and sixth, respectively.
The fifth-place finish in the all-around qualified Freeman for the Winter Cup Challenge in mid-February. The event is sanctioned by USA Gymnastics and serves a qualifying event for a spot on the national team.
The OU men’s gymnastics squad is next in action on Feb. 8, when they open the season at home against the No. 10-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes.