Ohio State to Defend NCAA Gymnastics Title

Defending team champion Ohio State and five returning champs in individual events will be part of the field this week at the NCAA men’s gymnastics championships.

Nine teams, eight of which also qualified for last year’s meet, will try to prevent Ohio State from winning another title.

“Last year, the fight for the championship was probably the best I’ve ever seen,” said Wayne Young, Brigham Young gymnastics coach and chairman of the NCAA’s gymnastics committee. “This year, it will be much more intense. Only five-tenths of a point separates the first five teams, and there are three others that could win it.”

Host Nebraska is the top-ranked team going into the meet this Friday and Saturday. The Cornhuskers enter the meet with an average score of 280.55 points.

Stanford is second with 280.27 points per meet and UCLA third at 280.19. Other teams entered include Arizona State, Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State and Southern Illinois.

For the first time, the teams were selected for the championships on the average of their top five scores during the season, with three of those scores coming on the road.

Nebraska Coach Francis Allen said the Huskers are a good position to be one of the three teams that qualify for Saturday’s finals. Allen predicted Arizona State and UCLA will join Nebraska in the finals.

“Whichever team gets off first and gets that feel of competition is going to win,” Allen said. “We could do it, but so could Arizona State and UCLA.”

Nebraska’s Wes Suter will return to defend his all-around championship.

“He’s at his best right now,” Allen said. “I see him polishing his performance. I think he’s going repeat.”

Suter is currently ranked first in the nation in all-around, the only returning champion ranked first in his event. He is also returning champion in the floor exercise.

Other returning champions include Mark Diab of Iowa State in the still rings, Derrick Cornelious of Cortland State in the vault and Dan Hayden of Arizona State in the high bar.

Although the meet is lacking in big names such as Bart Conner, Peter Vidmar or Jim Hartung, the coaches and meet officials stressed that the gymnastics’ future stars will emerge from the competitors here.