University of Minnesota Athletics
Gophers Headed to Iowa for Big Ten Championships
4/3/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
April 3, 2012
No. 5 Minnesota is headed to Iowa City this weekend to compete against the six other Big Ten men's gymnastics teams in the conference championship.
Nearly two weeks ago the Gophers' recorded a new season-high score of 350.6 in their last regular meet of the season. Since then the team has been hard at work preparing for the post-season, which begins Friday night with the Big Ten Championships.
"These guys should feel good after the last few meets," head coach Mike Burns said. "The fact that we've continued to post season-high scores in the last half of the season is a good sign. It shows how much they have improved as the year has progressed. This is a great team and we are ready to go."
The Championships are a two-day event, starting with the team competition on Friday night. With the addition of Nebraska to the Big Ten, there are now seven total teams competing for the conference title. The all-around champion will also be crowned from the Friday night competition, and the top ten individual event finalists will be determined. The individual event finals will take place on Saturday night.
The Gophers are coming into the Championships ranked No. 5 in the nation. Out of the seven Big Ten teams they have the third-highest ranking, behind only Penn State and Illinois. Minnesota is currently ranked first in the nation on vault and third on parallel bars. The team has eight gymnasts ranked in the top 20 on individual events, including senior Russell Dabritz who is ranked third in the country on the parallel bars. Freshman Steve Jaciuk is just three spots behind at No. 6 in the standings for parallel bars. And last year's Big Ten vaulting champion, Zack Chase, is currently ranked No. 7 on vault.
"This is going to be a really exciting competition," Burns said. "There will be lots of noise and excitement with fans from all seven teams yelling and cheering. I feel very confident in these guys, and I'm excited to see them march into Iowa City and put on their best performance of the year!"
The Championships will be held on Friday and Saturday at the University of Iowa in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Both nights of competition begin at 7pm CT.
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