Day One Team Results | All Around Results
Jan. 16, 2015
WEST POINT, N.Y. - The No. 6 Penn State men's gymnastics team captured their 16th West Point Open team title Friday night at the Christl Arena. Thirteen Nittany Lions posted qualifying performances for the individual finals Saturday night.
"It was a great effort tonight, we hit 86 percent of our routines," head coach Randy Jepson said. "It was great to have some of the guys step back into the lineup and it was a great early season performance."
The No. 6 Nittany Lions tallied their second consecutive team title with their score of 439.400, followed by No.12 Army (416.150) and No. 15 Navy (409.200). No. 17 Springfield College (405.300) and No. 18 Temple (402.050) finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
Penn State captured the top spot in five of six events. The Nittany Lions led the competition in the floor exercise (74.650), still rings (76.350), vault (72.150), parallel bars (75.900) and high bar (71.300).
In his season debut, junior Trevor Howard (Columbus, Ohio) tallied the best score in the still rings with a career best score of 15.850 and he also posted a career best score of 15.650 in the parallel bars for the top score on the evening. Along with his scores in the still rings and the parallel bars, Howard tallied the third-best score in the high bar (14.450) to advance to the finals.
Leroy Clarke, Jr. (Maplewood, N.J.) Matthew Felleman (Medway, Mass.) and Alexis Torres (Catano, Puerto Rico) also advanced to the finals in three events, respectively.
Clarke, Jr., has the third-best score in the still rings (15.350), the fourth-best score in the parallel bars (15.050) and the seventh-best score in the high bar (13.900). Felleman recorded the third-best score in the vault (14.500), the fifth-best score in the parallel bars (14.800) and the second-best score in the high bar (14.800). Torres is heading into the finals of the still rings, vault and parallel bars. Torres recorded a score of 15.750 in the still rings (second), posted a score of 14.350 in the vault (fifth) and a score of 15.200 in the parallel bars (tied for second).
Six other Nittany Lions are heading to the finals of in a pair of events each. Tristan Duverglas (West Orange, N.J.) and Dominic DiFulvio (Marietta, N.Y.) are both leading events. Duverglas is currently in first in the vault (14.900) and DiFulvio is leading the floor exercise with a score of 15.400.
Craig Hernandez (Libertyville, Ill.) also made his 2015 debut for the Nittany Lions Friday night. Hernandez is currently tied for second in the pommel horse event with his score of 15.000.
With their performance tonight, the Nittany Lions captured the school record in the team floor exercise, the school record in the team parallel bars, the third-best team still rings performance and the seventh-best team score in school history.
The Nittany Lions return to action tomorrow night for the individual finals portion of the West Point Open. Saturday's action is set to start at 7 p.m. inside the Christl Arena.
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