After a hard week of training, the Michigan men’s gymnastics team traveled to California to compete in this weekend’s Stanford Invitational. Falling behind No. 4 California and No. 12 Stanford, the Wolverines notched a 211.825, grabbing a third-place finish out of five.
“It was nice to get out of (Michigan) and get a break from our same old routine,” Michigan coach Kurt Golder said. “Getting in the California climate was also good.”
Despite the warm temperature, Michigan senior Scott Vetere was feeling under the weather and was unable to compete.
“Scott has been doing great things lately,” Golder said. “We did poorly on the parallel bars, and I am confident that had we been able to use Scott, we would have been able to snatch second place.”
Despite failing to place on the parallel bars, the Wolverine’s proved to be masters on the rings. Four of the Wolverines placed in the top ten, giving the team a first-place finish on the event. Scott Vetere’s absence was greatly missed on rings as well.
“We really kicked it out on the rings,” Golder said. “But Scott would have put an exclamation point on it.”
The most pleasing event of the night was the pommel horse. Several of the Wolverines added new elements to their routines and fortunately they all worked out. Seniors Jamie Hertza and Brian Peterson finished in fourth and seventh place, respectively.
“We’ve been struggling on the pommel horse for years,” Golder said. “It was nice to come in second out of five teams on the event.”
The freshmen also stepped up this weekend and finished in the top ten of their events.
Justin Laury clutched a fifth-place finish on the all-around, while Drew DiGiore and Derek Croad grabbed a fourth and sixth-place finish on the vault.
The Wolverines are looking forward to a week off, as they will continue to increase their difficulty over the next two weeks and head to Ohio State on Saturday, March 15.