No. 9 Cal Falls To Stanford
BERKELEY - Improvements from multiple freshmen and another stellar meet all around on vault highlighted the day for the No. 9 California men's gymnastics team, but the Golden Bears suffered their first loss of the season to Stanford, 394.350-380.200, Saturday from Golden Bear Rec.
"The good routines were done well, but the bad routines were done poorly," head coach JT Okada said. "We got off to a better start this week compared to last week, but we had too many events where we had issues or mistakes. We have a short week now with our next meet on Wednesday. We need to make some adjustments pretty quickly, and we will."
Cal got the day started well with four personal bests on floor, which led to the Bears' top floor score of the season at 65.300. Aidan Giusti, Collin Cunane, Kyle Abe and Noah Newfeld all reached personal bests in the event.
Newfeld and Cunane both set multiple career highs against the Cardinal, and Newfeld and Kyle Abe each competed in the all-around for the second time this season. Newfeld's top score of the day was his personal-best 13.300 on vault.
"They both did well," Okada said about the freshmen. "Collin is filling in some gaps for us right now. I'm happy for those two and how they're contributing on multiple events."
Reigning MPSF Gymnast of the Week Yu-Chen Lee paced Cal in three of the six events, including posting a season high on parallel bars (13.600) and tying his season high on vault (13.950). He was the Bears' top scorer on floor (13.400) for the third straight meet, as well as parallel bars and horizontal bar (12.350).
In addition to floor, Cal set a season high score on vault (69.200) - thanks to Caleb Rickard's personal-best and overall team season-best score of 14.600, surpassing his previous career high of 14.350, which he garnered in the first two meets of the season. In addition to Rickard's top mark and Lee tying his season high, Abe notched a new season high (13.750), while Savion Perea (13.650) and Seth Ornelas (13.350) earned new personal bests, as well.
On pommel horse, Will Lavanakul posted a season-high 13.450.
The Bears have a quick turnaround, hosting Springfield College on Wednesday, Feb. 17, at 11 am from Golden Bear Rec. Due to current local health guidelines, fans will not be allowed to attend the meet in person. The virtual meet will be live streamed at https://virti.us/start
"We're looking forward to the quick turnaround," Okada said. "The nice thing about a short week is we can go in and correct any mistakes pretty quickly. We don't need to wait until Saturday to get another crack at it. That's what we're looking forward to."