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NewsvineThe Stanford men’s gymnastics team earned an impressive second-place finish in the Pacific Coast Classic, held last Saturday in Oakland, Calif. The fifth-ranked Cardinal tallied an overall score of 216.650, just behind top finisher No. 2 Oklahoma (218.450). The top-ranked team in the country, Michigan, was fourth with a 214.000.
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In the All-Around competition, junior David Sender and sophomore Bryant Hadden placed third and fifth, respectively. Sender tallied a total of 54.800, powered by a first-place finish in the vault (9.400) and second in a very smooth parallel bars routine (9.5500). Hadden (45.450) placed fifth in the parallel bars as well as fifth in the high bar, with both scores (9.2500 and 9.3500, respectively) shattering his previous collegiate personal bests.
It was more than healthy scores that contributed to the team’s success this weekend — it was also the Cardinal’s return to a healthy lineup.
“In the past we’ve been competing with four-man lineups on several events,” senior captain Dylan Carney said. “This was the first time that we were healthy enough to field full squads in almost every event.”
Stanford looked solid across the board, with four gymnasts earning top five finishes. Carney, the defending national champion in the high bar, nabbed a first-place finish with a near-flawless 9.90. Also of note, senior Alex Schorsch returned from a shoulder injury to finish second in the still rings with a score of 9.75.
Schorsch, Sender, Hadden and senior Peter Derman all placed in the top 12 of the still rings competition, despite the Cardinal’s not having a full squad for the event. Carney called it “no surprise” that, despite the numbers, Stanford had huge success in the rings competition — all four men are ranked in the top 10 nationally for the event.
In the floor exercise, sophomore Greg Ter-Zakhariants finished tied for ninth place with a score of 9.30, a team high on the floor exercise for the season. After redshirting his freshman season and sitting out most of this season, Ter-Zakhariants returned to the lineup after only a few weeks of training and had a nice performance to help the overall team score.
Junior Eli Alcaraz was especially impressed by Ter-Zakhariants and fellow sophomore Hadden.
“I think special recognition should go to the sophomores for their efforts this weekend,” Alcaraz said.
Those efforts were nearly stilted by a rough warm-up session for the squad. Hadden hyperextended his knee on a ring dismount and junior Chris Harper twisted his knee on a vault landing — Harper sprained it enough to be taken out of the vault and parallel bar routines. But the shaky start had little effect on the team’s start.
“Everyone pulled through and when it was time to compete,” Carney said. “Nobody looked phased.”
A high note for the Cardinal came on the pommel horse exercise. A recent struggle for the team, the event featured a few encouraging performances. Sender placed fourth with an 8.8500, while Hadden and Harper had identical 8.6500 scores, good for a tie for eighth place individually.
“The guys fought through this event,” junior Jason Shen said. “We still had to count one fall, but it is an improvement over the past few meets. Many guys can [still] score much higher [on the pommel].”
Overall, Carney believes that despite a strong performance this past weekend, Stanford is capable of even greater achievements.
“We competed well, but we were still far from maxing out our possible team score,” Carney said. “Getting this close to Oklahoma [the defending national champions] after a performance that we know we can improve on gives us a lot of confidence.”
With the team back to looking healthy again, the squad looks to polish its routines as it heads toward the NCAA Championship. The Cardinal has no doubts that it will face Oklahoma in the postseason, as the perennial men’s gymnastics powerhouse is out to repeat its NCAA Championship from last season.
“Everyone is really motivated to get back into the gym and work on [scoring] a few more tenths here and there so that we will be ready to beat them at the end of the season when it matters most,” Carney said.