April 18, 2009
MINNEAPOLIS - Penn State senior Casey Sandy (Brampton, Ont.) recorded a top 10 finish in the vault on Friday night during the team portion of the 2009 National Collegiate Men's Gymnastics Championships, held at host Minnesota's Sports Pavilion in Minneapolis. By virtue of his ninth place showing, he will advance to Saturday's individual event finals.
The 2009 Nissen-Emery Award winner fell short is his defense of his 2008 NCAA all-around title, placing seventh with a score of 88.400. By virtue of his top-eight finish in the all-around, he earned his eighth career All-America honor.
Sandy posted a season-high score in the floor exercise (15.400) to finish in 12th but faltered early on in the competition on two of his strongest events, the parallel bars (13.500, tie 42nd) and high bar (14.000, tie 35th). Sandy also placed 17th in the pommel horse (14.650) and 22nd (tie) (15.000) in the still rings.
"Casey fought hard but did not have his best night by far," said Penn State head coach Randy Jepson. "It is a real credit to him to have come in with the injury and to work hard and to work through that to perform. He has one more to go tomorrow and hopefully he can put another All-America certificate on the wall and close out a great career at Penn State."
Junior Nick Virbitsky (Harrisburg, Pa.) used a season high score of 15.450 in the floor exercise to tie for 10th place with Illinois' Roger Pasek. He will not move on to the individual event finals based on NCAA tiebreaker rules that state that the competitor with the higher score in the national qualifier shall advance. Virbitsky recorded a 15.100 on Thursday while Pasek scored a 15.250.
Junior Noam Shaham (Kfar Saba, Israel) placed 10th in the all-around, totaling a score of 85.150. He was buoyed by season high scores in the floor exercise (15.150) and the still rings (15.050).
Senior captain Josh Borromeo (Littlestown, Pa.) finished out his standout Penn State career by posting a 15.050 in the still rings to tie for 17th place.
Junior Allen Harris (Lancaster, Pa.) competed in three events, placing 18th (tie) (15.150) in the floor exercise, 35th in the parallel bars (13.850), and 42nd in the vault (15.000).
Junior Matt Greenfield (Villanova, Pa.) and sophomore Warren Yang (Nepean, Ont.) both competed in the high bar. Greenfield earned score of 14.500 (tie, 16th) while Yang posted a 13.800 (tie, 40th).
Competition on the final day of the 2009 National Collegiate Men's Gymnastics Championships is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. ET on Sat., April 18.
The team and all-around finals of the 2009 National Collegiate Championships will air on ESPN2 on Thurs., April 23 at 3 p.m. ET.