Feb. 27, 2010
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The No. 5 Penn State men's gymnastics team had its three-meet regular season winning streak versus Ohio State snapped on Sunday afternoon when the Nittany Lions suffered a 353.600-347.100 setback to the No. 7 Buckeyes at St. John Arena in Columbus. The dual meet loss was Penn State's third to a Big Ten opponent this season.
As a team, Penn State won the floor exercise and vault and established season highs in the still rings (59.550) and vault (62.500) while three Nittany Lions captured individual event titles but it was not enough to overcome an Ohio State season high score that was over six points higher than its previous best.
Freshman Nick Grant (Butler, Pa.) won his fourth floor exercise and vault titles of the season to pace Penn State. His vault score of 15.850 tied the Penn State season high owned by senior Noam Shaham (Kfar Saba, Israel). Senior Nick Virbitsky (Harrisburg, Pa.) contributed another strong performance, placing first in the high bar with a team season high and career best score of 15.050. He also placed second in the floor exercise (14.700) and third in the vault (15.650).
A standout performance by freshman Parker Raque (Louisville, Ky.) in the still rings also highlighted the meet for Penn State. He scored a 15.200 to place second in the event, finishing behind only OSU's Brandon Wynn, a member of the U.S. Men's Senior National Team. Raque's mark was .150 higher than the previous Penn State team high for the season.
For the second consecutive meet, Noam Shaham set a career high in the parallel bars, scoring a 14.700 versus the Buckeyes to finish in a tie for second. He also placed fourth in the high bar (14.650).
Freshman Felix Aronovich (Kiryat Bialik, Israel) competed in the all-around for the first time in his career, compiling a team season high of 83.250. The former two-time Big Ten Freshman of the Week was helped by a season high score of 14.400 in the high bar.
Penn State got other key performances from freshman Mackenzie Dow (Cranford, N.J.) (3rd, pommel horse ) and senior Matt Greenfield (Villanova, Pa.) (3rd, floor exercise).
Next weekend, the Nittany Lions return to Happy Valley to host a 7 p.m. tri-meet that will feature match-ups with No. 6 Minnesota and No. 11 Temple on Sat., March 6 at Rec Hall. Penn State has dominated the head-to-head series with Minnesota, compiling a 10-2 record, but fell to the Golden Gophers a year ago in Minneapolis, 345.850-344.500. The Nittany Lions have more wins against Temple, 74, than any other opponent in program history, including two last season.