COLUMBUS Simply "disappointing."

After finishing the regular season with a 12-1 record and placing second to Ohio State in the Big Ten Championships, the Michigan men"s gymnastics team seemed prepared to storm into Columbus to reclaim the NCAA title that was in its possession two short years ago.

Last year"s heartbreaker, a second-place finish to Penn State by the slimmest of margins, only served to add more fuel to the fire.

The team"s desire to win was also plastered on their tee shirts for this season "Retain (Big Ten title) and Regain (NCAA title)."

But in this past weekend"s NCAA Championships at Saint John Arena, Michigan only managed to take fourth place behind Ohio State, Oklahoma and California.

"It"s a disappointment," Michigan coach Kurt Golder said. "It"s one that slipped through our fingers."

During Friday night"s team and all-around finals, the Wolverines struggled immensely on the pommel horse. In un-Michigan-like fashion, three of the six Wolverines fell while performing their routines.

With the team total on each event consisting of the top four scores, Michigan"s chances at winning the NCAA title took a huge dent as they gathered a season-low team score of 34.650 on the pommel horse.

Throughout this season, pommel horse was one of the team"s strengths, producing an average score of 35.812 . Adding to the irony of the team"s poor performance, Michigan posted a season-high team total of 37.050 the previous night in the pommel horse preliminaries to qualify for Friday"s team finals.

"Pommel horse killed us," Golder said. "If we could take yesterday"s pommel horse score, we would have won the meet tonight by five tenths of a point, but the ball hasn"t bounced our way all year. We"ve had a lot of things to overcome. I feel good for what we did do. But when you know what you could have donepommel horse is a little bit hard to take."

Even after spending the majority of the season attempting to maintain consistency in their routines, the Wolverines struggled to produce when they truly needed it.

"All we had to do is hit those routines," Golder said. "Consistency is what we were trying to base the year on, but things happen. Yesterday, it happened on parallel bars and it really hurt our team total and today it happened on pommel horse. Right now we"d be celebrating the national championship if things that I guess I can"t explain didn"t take place."

In two earlier competitions this season, the Wolverines defeated the Buckeyes, but they finished the season behind Ohio State in the Big Ten and NCAA championships.

"Not that this is the excuse, but we started off the season with Kevin Roulston," Golder said.

Despite struggling on the pommel horse, Michigan actually led the field by a tenth of a point after four rotations, but Ohio State finished strong with impressive performances on the rings and vault.

Competing at St. John Arena, the Buckeyes thrived off of the home crowd. Huge contributions by Raj Bhavsar the nation"s top performer on the parallel bars and Jamie Natalie the NCAA all-around champion, followed by moments of energetic prancing around the arena, kept the Ohio State fans energized throughout the night. It helped the Buckeyes earn their first NCAA title since 1996.

"It"s already done and over with so there"s nothing we can do now," junior Brad Kenna said. "It hurts, but we"ll get them next year."

Saturday night concluded the three-day competition with individual event finals. Featuring five Michigan gymnasts including juniors Scott Vetere, Daniel Diaz-Luong and Kenna, and sophomores Kris Zimmerman and Conan Parzuchowski the individual event finals gave the gymnasts a chance to display their individual skills.

None of the qualifying Wolverines earned top honors, but Vetere, Diaz-Luong, and Zimmerman each garnered second place in events while Parzuchowski captured a fifth-place finish in the still rings. Each of the gymnasts earned All-America honors for placing in the top six of their respective events.

"We"ve got to take the good with the bad," Golder said. "It"s a disappointment, but there"s also the other side of the coin. We have a lot to be proud of. They kept their heads above the water all year long. With all the adversity that we had to overcome this year, just to be in contention is really phenomenal."