University of Minnesota Athletics
Saturday, February 23
Lincoln, Neb.
1:00 PM
University of Minnesota
at
Nebraska / UIC
Players Mentioned
/ Men's Gymnastics
/ Men's Gymnastics
/ Men's Gymnastics
/ Men's Gymnastics
/ Men's Gymnastics
/ Men's Gymnastics
Photo by: Jessica Frankl
Meet Preview: Gophers Travel to Nebraska for Tri-Meet
2/20/2019 6:35:00 PM | Men's Gymnastics
Video Preview: Burns Turn 2/19
The Minnesota men's gymnastics team gets back to action this Saturday after a week away from the competition floor.
The No. 4 Gophers will head to Lincoln, Neb. for a tri-meet against the No. 8 Huskers and No. 18 UIC Flames on Saturday, Feb. 23. It's the second meeting of the season between Minnesota and Nebraska and its third with UIC.
Now halfway through the regular season, teams will make the switch to the five-up, five-count format. In this scenario, five gymnasts are put into the lineup for each event rather than six, and all five scores count.
"It's a strategy right now as to how we want to approach this competition. The next meet after this, we go down to Illinois and that's one of the meets in our Big Ten Regular Season Championship schedule, this one at Nebraska is not," head coach Mike Burns said. "It gives us a chance to maybe do some experimenting with our lineup, knowing at the same time next week we're going to really need our top-notch guys in the lineup."
Sophomore Shane Wiskus and senior captain Shaun Herzog both competed in the Winter Cup in Las Vegas, Nev. last weekend, with Herzog coming in ninth place. Most of the team has not competed since its home victory over Arizona State and the UMN Club Team on Feb. 9.
"People think, 'Hey we have the week off,' we didn't really have a week off. It was a great week to make the improvements, make some potential upgrades in difficulty, and we're mostly focusing on cleaning up routines," head coach Mike Burns said. "Our average deduction for the team lately has been in the 1.5, 1.7 range, so we hope we can bring those down to 1.2, 0.8 range. If we can do that, we'll be in great shape. We're trying to fix the three-tenths deduction and make it a one-tenth deduction, take a one-tenth deduction and make it a zero deduction. That's the path we're going on as we get to the latter part of the season."
The meet will be streamed via Huskers.com and live stats will also be provided courtesy of Nebraska. Fans can also follow the Gophers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for all updates and coverage. Coach Burns and Herzog recapped the Winter Cup and previewed the upcoming schedule over on this week's episode of Burn's Turn, which can be found on Facebook!
Last Time Out
At the Winter Cup, Wiskus and Herzog both started action with Friday's preliminary round. Wiskus finished in a tie for 27th, while Herzog came in 20th. With top ten finishes on vault (5th, 14.500) and parallel bars (9th, 13.450), Herzog earned eight points, which were good to qualify him for Sunday's final. He built on a great start with and placed ninth overall with a two-day score of 157.400. In addition to all-around, Herzog had three top 10 event finishes on rings, vault and parallel bars. It was a huge improvement for Herzog from the 2018 Winter Cup, where he finished 16th.
The Gophers' last meet as a team was one to remember. Minnesota defeated ASU and UMN Club with a new season-high score of 408.600 and swept the event titles for the second week in a row. Shane Wiskus posted new career highs on vault (14.800), parallel bars (14.800) and high bar (14.800) to earn the titles and led him to be named Big Ten Gymnast of the Week. Senior Justin Karstadt took the title on rings (13.600) and all-around (80.450), which he had not competed in since his sophomore year. Captains Vitali Kan and Shaun Herzog took the pommel horse (13.800) and floor (14.150) titles, respectively. Rookie David Pochinka took home a pair of second place finishes on pommel horse (13.550) and rings (13.600) and took third on high bar (13.050) and was named Big Ten Freshman of the Week.
Gophers in the Rankings
Minnesota is currently ranked No. 4 overall and within the top 10 on each event: No. 8 on rings and high bar, No. 6 on pommel horse, No. 5 on floor and No. 3 on vault and parallel bars. Five Gophers are ranked in the top ten on individual events. Wiskus comes in at No 2 on parallel bars, No. 5 on high bar and No. 3 all-around. Karstadt has been consistently ranked on pommel horse all season and is currently No. 10. Kan and Herzog are both ranked on vault at No. 4 and No. 8, and Pochinka is Minnesota's lone ranked freshman at No. 10 on high bar.
The Road Ahead
The Gophers have one more road meet before returning home for consecutive weekends. They will head to Champaign, Ill. to face off against No. 11 Illinois and No. 2 Stanford on March 2 at 2 p.m. It is one of Minnesota's Big Ten meets that will count in the race for the first-ever Big Ten Regular Season Championship.
New Year, New Leaders
The Gophers are anchored this season by a brand new set of captains. Chosen by their team and outgoing seniors, junior Timmy Kutyla and seniors Vitali Kan and Shaun Herzog are serving as this year's Gophers leaders. Kan is a two-time All-American on vault and is currently ranked No. 4 on the event, while Herzog had a breakout season last year that saw him finishing with six career-highs and All-American honors on rings. He isn't slowing down this year, especially coming off of a great Winter Cup performance that included ninth place overall and two other top 10 finishes. Kutyla is the only junior on the team and has scored on parallel bars and high bar in every meet this season.
The Minnesota men's gymnastics team gets back to action this Saturday after a week away from the competition floor.
The No. 4 Gophers will head to Lincoln, Neb. for a tri-meet against the No. 8 Huskers and No. 18 UIC Flames on Saturday, Feb. 23. It's the second meeting of the season between Minnesota and Nebraska and its third with UIC.
Now halfway through the regular season, teams will make the switch to the five-up, five-count format. In this scenario, five gymnasts are put into the lineup for each event rather than six, and all five scores count.
"It's a strategy right now as to how we want to approach this competition. The next meet after this, we go down to Illinois and that's one of the meets in our Big Ten Regular Season Championship schedule, this one at Nebraska is not," head coach Mike Burns said. "It gives us a chance to maybe do some experimenting with our lineup, knowing at the same time next week we're going to really need our top-notch guys in the lineup."
Sophomore Shane Wiskus and senior captain Shaun Herzog both competed in the Winter Cup in Las Vegas, Nev. last weekend, with Herzog coming in ninth place. Most of the team has not competed since its home victory over Arizona State and the UMN Club Team on Feb. 9.
"People think, 'Hey we have the week off,' we didn't really have a week off. It was a great week to make the improvements, make some potential upgrades in difficulty, and we're mostly focusing on cleaning up routines," head coach Mike Burns said. "Our average deduction for the team lately has been in the 1.5, 1.7 range, so we hope we can bring those down to 1.2, 0.8 range. If we can do that, we'll be in great shape. We're trying to fix the three-tenths deduction and make it a one-tenth deduction, take a one-tenth deduction and make it a zero deduction. That's the path we're going on as we get to the latter part of the season."
The meet will be streamed via Huskers.com and live stats will also be provided courtesy of Nebraska. Fans can also follow the Gophers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for all updates and coverage. Coach Burns and Herzog recapped the Winter Cup and previewed the upcoming schedule over on this week's episode of Burn's Turn, which can be found on Facebook!
Last Time Out
At the Winter Cup, Wiskus and Herzog both started action with Friday's preliminary round. Wiskus finished in a tie for 27th, while Herzog came in 20th. With top ten finishes on vault (5th, 14.500) and parallel bars (9th, 13.450), Herzog earned eight points, which were good to qualify him for Sunday's final. He built on a great start with and placed ninth overall with a two-day score of 157.400. In addition to all-around, Herzog had three top 10 event finishes on rings, vault and parallel bars. It was a huge improvement for Herzog from the 2018 Winter Cup, where he finished 16th.
The Gophers' last meet as a team was one to remember. Minnesota defeated ASU and UMN Club with a new season-high score of 408.600 and swept the event titles for the second week in a row. Shane Wiskus posted new career highs on vault (14.800), parallel bars (14.800) and high bar (14.800) to earn the titles and led him to be named Big Ten Gymnast of the Week. Senior Justin Karstadt took the title on rings (13.600) and all-around (80.450), which he had not competed in since his sophomore year. Captains Vitali Kan and Shaun Herzog took the pommel horse (13.800) and floor (14.150) titles, respectively. Rookie David Pochinka took home a pair of second place finishes on pommel horse (13.550) and rings (13.600) and took third on high bar (13.050) and was named Big Ten Freshman of the Week.
Gophers in the Rankings
Minnesota is currently ranked No. 4 overall and within the top 10 on each event: No. 8 on rings and high bar, No. 6 on pommel horse, No. 5 on floor and No. 3 on vault and parallel bars. Five Gophers are ranked in the top ten on individual events. Wiskus comes in at No 2 on parallel bars, No. 5 on high bar and No. 3 all-around. Karstadt has been consistently ranked on pommel horse all season and is currently No. 10. Kan and Herzog are both ranked on vault at No. 4 and No. 8, and Pochinka is Minnesota's lone ranked freshman at No. 10 on high bar.
The Road Ahead
The Gophers have one more road meet before returning home for consecutive weekends. They will head to Champaign, Ill. to face off against No. 11 Illinois and No. 2 Stanford on March 2 at 2 p.m. It is one of Minnesota's Big Ten meets that will count in the race for the first-ever Big Ten Regular Season Championship.
New Year, New Leaders
The Gophers are anchored this season by a brand new set of captains. Chosen by their team and outgoing seniors, junior Timmy Kutyla and seniors Vitali Kan and Shaun Herzog are serving as this year's Gophers leaders. Kan is a two-time All-American on vault and is currently ranked No. 4 on the event, while Herzog had a breakout season last year that saw him finishing with six career-highs and All-American honors on rings. He isn't slowing down this year, especially coming off of a great Winter Cup performance that included ninth place overall and two other top 10 finishes. Kutyla is the only junior on the team and has scored on parallel bars and high bar in every meet this season.
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