University of Minnesota Athletics
Gophers Take Second in Final Home Meet
3/6/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
The University of Minnesota men's gymnastics team had a solid final home meet of the season on Saturday, but ultimately came up just short in its efforts to win the meet.
The Gophers finished in second place out of the three teams with a score of 344.6. Penn State won the event with a score of 351.6 and Iowa finished in third place with a score of 333.8.
"Penn State is a tough team, and we know coming out here that they were going to be tough to beat," Minnesota head coach Mike Burns said. "We needed our A-plus game tonight and I think we brought our A-minus game. We got some work to do, but I was still pretty pleased."
The Gophers came out of the gate strong with a 58.4 score on the floor exercise, and continued to put up high scores, including putting up a score of 61.7 on the vault. but through each rotation, continued to come up just behind Penn State throughout the night as the Nittany Lions performed well throughout the meet.
The Gophers had several key performers in the meet. Freshman Zack Chase and Justin Morinishi each had career bests on the floor exercise with scores of 14.9.
The career high scores continued at the end of the meet as three Gophers gymnasts set personal bests. Josh Wokurka and Ali Aleiou each had a score of 14.5 and Russell Dabritz had a best of 14.2.
Other highlight performances include Adam LaFleur and DJ Repp each scoring 15.7 on the vault.
"It was great to see the seniors go out and do a great job for us tonight," Burns said. "Ali Aleiou did a great job on the high bar for us, Michael Paulus did a great job on p-bars, Michael Hillin got though a nice high bar and p-bar routine and Travis did a great job on the rings. It was good to see them leave on a good note."
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Players Mentioned
