Oklahoma gymnastics has another chance for a 2024 NCAA championship
By Chip Rouse
The Oklahoma gymnastics program stunningly did not advance to the NCAA Championship finals on the women's side this season but still has a chance to claim another national championship on the men's side with OU advancing out of the qualifying round on Friday into the 2024 NCAA Men's finals.
The No. 2-seeded Sooners posted the highest qualifying score (418.957), narrowly edging No. 3 Michigan (418.954) in the evening qualifying session at the Covelli Center on the campus of Ohio State University.
The top three teams out of each of the two qualifying sessions advanced to Saturdays championship finals. Ohio State (408,725) joins Oklahoma and Michigan in the finals. No. 1 Stanford (417.389), Nebraska (413.123) and Illinois (410.161) are the three teams moving on from the earlier session on Friday.
The Sooners posted the highest team score on pommel horse and vault. OU's vault score (72.866) was the team's best of the season in that event, and the Sooners recorded their second-highest score of 2024 on the still rings and parallel bars.
Next. OU's hopes for a 3rd straight women's gymnastics national championship dashed. OU women's gymnastics fails to advance to NCAA Championship final for first time in 11 years.. dark
OU freshman Max Bereznov won the vault with a score of 15.000. It was the second time this season he has reached that mark. Junior Emil Dodanli finished first in floor exercise with a score of 14.866 in the Sooner anchor position. Dodanli has scored 14.800 or higher in the event six different times this season and is the only male gymnast in the country to score higher than that in floor exercise this sason.
"We just looked comfortable and poised," OU head coach Mark Williams, in his 25th year leading the Sooners, told reporters after the evening session on Friday. "It was one of those nights where everything came together pretty easily, and the guys hit 100 percent."
The Sooner men have 12 national championships to their credit and nine under Williams.
The outcome of Saturday's NCAA Championship finals will determine the team national champion as well as the all-around and individual event national champions.