No. 4 Stanford men’s gymnastics finished another successful season with a third-place showing at the NCAA Championships in Ann Arbor, Mich., over the weekend with a team score of 436.300, which placed it behind first-place Michigan (445.050) and second-place Oklahoma (441.650). The result marked the eighth top-three national finish in the last nine years for the Cardinal.
Freshman Akash Modi further cemented his status as one of the top all-around gymnasts in the nation, as his all-around score of 89.200 earned him second place at the event behind only Michigan’s Sam Mikulak.
Although the Cardinal had strong performances in both the floor (74.150) and parallel bars (74.900), weak showings in both the pommel horse (70.800) and high bar (70.850) dragged Stanford’s overall showing down and stopped it from keeping pace with Michigan, which surpassed the 75.000 mark on the floor, pommel horse and parallel bars to propel itself far ahead of the field. In comparison, Oklahoma had two events in which it scored 75.000 or higher while Stanford had none.
Also at the team event, five Cardinal gymnasts advanced to Saturday’s NCAA Individual Event Finals with their top-10 finishes in their events: junior Brian Knott on parallel bars, junior Michael Levy on floor, Modi on pommel horse and parallel bars, senior Sean Senters on floor and vault and sophomore Dennis Zaremski on rings and parallel bars.
At the individual finals, all five qualifying gymnasts earned All-America honors with successful finishes in all of their events, with the only exception being Zaremski, whose performance on the parallel bars fell just short. However, the sophomore’s fifth-place finish in the rings, the other event that he qualified in, was more than enough to secure his second career All-American honor.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu.