University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Falls Short at NCAA Team Qualifier
4/16/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
The University of Minnesota men's gymnastics team finished fourth in the six-team evening session of the NCAA Championship Team Qualifier Thursday night at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. The top three teams moved on to Friday night's Team Finals.
Despite the team's finish, Gopher head coach Mike Burns was satisfied with his team's performance. He was especially happy because eight of his gymnasts will advance to Friday night's competition as individuals. The top 10 performers in each of the six individual events on Friday will move on to Saturday with a chance to earn an individual NCAA Championship and/or All-America status.
"I'm really pleased, even though we didn't make the Team Finals," Burns said. All six of our seniors made Day Two, so that's great. We had eight guys advance and I'm really excited about that."
Moving on to Friday night's competition as individuals are the following: Andre Berry (vault); Harris Coleman (pommel horse); Aaron Fortunato (all-around); Colin McGuire (floor exercise, high bar); Thomas O'Brien (pommel horse, rings); Michael Paulus (parallel bars); Adam Reichow (floor exercise); Cole Storer (floor exercise).
As a team, the Gophers struggled a bit at the beginning of the night with an event that has caused them problems all season.
"We had a tough start on the rings," Burns said. "But we kept fighting and battled all night."
Burns said the Minnesota contingent of fans was one reason his squad was able to remain upbeat throughout the night.
"The Minnesota crowd here was absolutely great," Burns said. "They were the loudest group in the arena. That really kept us going and made a big difference for us."
The Gophers final team score of 350.000 was five points short of the 355.000 that California put on the board to advance to Friday night's Team Finals. Oklahoma and Michigan were the other two teams to advance.
Berry had the best score of the evening for the Gophers, tallying a 16.050 on the vault. Storer and Reichow tied for team-high marks on the floor exercise with a 15.450. Coleman's 14.350 was good enough to advance on the pommel horse. O'Brien scored a 14.450 on the rings to go along with his 14.250 on the horse. Fortunato led the way on the high bar with a 14.400, while McGuire tallied a 14.300 on the apparatus. Fortunato also tallied a score of 86.800 in the all-around.
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Players Mentioned
