Men’s gymnastics notches third-place finish at NCAAs

April 22, 2013, 12:06 a.m.

Paced by 10 top-10 finishes from six different gymnasts, Stanford men’s gymnastics finished third at the NCAA Championships Team Finals with a team score of 436.150 on Saturday night.

The Cardinal finished behind NCAA Champion Michigan (443.200) and runner-up Oklahoma (426.450), but managed to edge Penn State — the meet’s host team — by five hundredths of a point to earn a spot on the podium.

Brian Knott (above)
Brian Knott (above) won the parallel bars title with a career-high score of 15.450 in the team final to help lead Stanford to a third-place finish. (HECTOR GARCIA-MOLINA/StanfordPhoto.com)

While the team earned at least one top-six finish in five of the six events, sophomore Brian Knott captured the Cardinal’s only event title in the team round with a career-high 15.450 on parallel bars.

Senior Eddie Penev, who last week was named the country’s top NCAA men’s gymnast, garnered All-American honors with a third-place result in the all-around. The Rochester, N.Y., native wound up second on the floor event with a score of 15.350 and attained a third-place finish on the vault to boot.

On Sunday, the Cardinal went for another successful round at the individual event finals, with six gymnasts racking up eight All-American honors. Penev bettered his performance on the floor from a day ago with a 15.550 — good enough to give him another second-place finish. Redshirt senior John Martin wound up third on the pommel horse.

George Chen is a senior staff writer at The Stanford Daily who writes football, football and more football. Previously he worked at The Daily as the President and Editor in Chief, Executive Editor, Managing Editor of Sports, the football beat reporter and a sports desk editor. George also co-authored The Daily's recent book documenting the rise of Stanford football, "Rags to Roses." He is a senior from Painted Post, NY majoring in Biology. To contact him, please email at [email protected].

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