Bears Record Top Finishes, PRs To Close Out Regular Season
NORMAN, OKLA. – California men's gymnastics closed out the regular season with a trio of top-three finishes and three more personal records, putting up a team score of 396.000 against No. 2 Oklahoma on Saturday.
The Sooners finished with 414.200 points.
"We really bounced back today," said head coach J.T. Okada. "This is the hardest time of the season – it's very easy to let your guard down and look ahead to postseason. Tonight's score shows that we're not messing around."
Sophomore Noah Newfeld was responsible for two scores above 14.000 and two of the aforementioned top-three finishes, with his personal-best 14.000 on the floor exercise earning him third place and his parallel bars total of 14.050 finishing in second. Junior Will Lavanakul placed second in his own event with a pommel horse score of 13.700, while freshman Tyler Shimizu set a massive PR of 12.950 in his own pommel routine. On vault, sophomore Jelani Sweet continued to improve, leading the Bears with a PR of 14.200.
Both Newfeld and senior Yu-Chen Lee competed in five of six events, with the former only forgoing the vault and the latter abstaining from the pommel horse. Lee led the team on the still rings (13.250) and horizontal bar (13.150).
The Bears have a week off from competition before heading back to Stanford for the MPSF Conference Championships.
"I'm proud of the way the guys handled this meet," Okada said. "We definitely deserve a break."
UP NEXT
The Bears return to Stanford on April 2 for the MPSF Championships.
STAY POSTED
For complete coverage of Cal men's gymnastics, please follow the Bears on Twitter (@CalMGym), Instagram (@CalMGym), Facebook (@Cal Men's Gymnastics) and TikTok (@CalMGym).