University of Minnesota Athletics
Gopher Gymnasts Open NCAA Competition Today
4/14/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
The eighth-ranked University of Minnesota men's gymnastics team will travel to the National Collegiate Men's Gymnastics Championships at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The championship event begins Thursday and runs through Saturday. The top 12 teams in the nation will compete Thursday, trying to reach Friday night's finals, which will see the top three teams from each of two Thursday sessions compete. Saturday's competition will be the individual event finals.
GOPHER POLL: Minnesota comes into the national meet ranked No. 8 in the NCAA/GymInfo rankings after its performance at the Big Ten Championships. Individually, several Gophers are ranked in the top 20 in different events: Floor exercise - Zack Chase, 16th; Pommel Horse - John Scallon, 8th; Vault - Zack Chase, 3rd; DJ Repp, 9th; ; Parallel Bars - Russell Dabritz, 13th; Horizontal Bar - Ali Aleiou, 16th.
THE OPPONENTS: Minnesota will be participating in the afternoon session Thursday. The Gophers' competition for three spots in Friday night's team finals will be No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 4 Illinois, No. 5 Penn State, No. 9 Air Force and No. 12 UIC.
CHAMPIONSHIPS HISTORY: In Mike Burns' tenure, Minnesota has been to the team finals once, in 2007. In Burns' six previous years, the Gophers have never finished outside the final top 10. Overall, the Gophers have now qualified for the NCAA Championships 43 times. Minnesota's top results came in 1941, 1949 and 1990 when the Gophers took runner-up finishes. Minnesota has been in the top 10 a total of 11 times in its men's gymnastics history.
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