Feb. 13, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -
By Anita Nham, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Determined. Strong-willed. Unbeatable. Indomitable.
Those are just a couple words to describe the undefeated Penn State men's gymnastics team. Not only have they won all four meets thus far this season, but the Blue and White has also captured the team title in floor exercise in all of those meets.
"It feels great," said sophomore Christian McSwain. "I definitely knew in the preseason that we were capable of it and it's nice to actually be doing it."
What has changed in the past year to allow such success to the men's gymnastics team?
"Last year, we couldn't stick a landing on the floor to save our life, but we've developed now to where we can do that and we've seen that in good scores" said head coach Randy Jepson.
Normally, it is a cliché to say "practice makes perfect," but in this case, that phrase couldn't be any more fitting.
"There's no secret," said coach Jepson. "We've been working forever on just trying to have clean, consistent landings...The successes we've had on the floor has just been a coalition of year-and-a-half of work, especially for the freshmen. Our seniors have been doing basic tumbling that we do every day for four years and those things culminate and build to where things come easier and easier every day you're out there and week by week, you get better, and so we're seeing the fruit of that in all the landings we're getting."
The routine and choreography for each athlete has to stand out to the judges, but the most important aspect for the floor exercise is to stick the landings.
"[The judging of landings] is huge because every other event, you only have one landing," said coach Jepson. "On floor, you have multiple landings, so that means there's a lot more places where you can get execution errors. They take off for every step you talk - one to three to five-tenths, and so if you have several steps during your routine, you just get killed in terms of scoring, so it's really important to stick your landings in floor exercise."
In addition to four team titles in floor exercise, three Nittany Lions have taken home individual titles in the event, including senior Matthew Felleman, freshman Thad Lawson, and McSwain.
Penn State opened the 2015 campaign with a matchup against then-No.12 Army. The team won all six events and Felleman received the first individual title of the season by placing first in floor exercise with a score of 15.100.
The men's gymnastics team's success continued the following week at the West Point Open at Christl Arena. Lawson finished first with a score of 15.300 and earned his first career award - Big Ten Freshman of the Week.
Lawson hasn't let the accolade slow him down as he has been consistently performing in the top-three at each meet.
Most recently, McSwain placed first in floor exercise at last week's meet against Ohio State.
"It felt amazing," said McSwain. "I've been waiting two years to finally hit a set."
Even with winning an individual title, McSwain hopes to improve for the rest of the season.
"I can definitely stick a few more landings," said McSwain. "[The routine last week] was a really good routine, but I still had a few little hops here and there."
With the team is doing so well in the floor exercise event, the focus at practice has been slightly shifted.
"We need to do better on high bar," said coach Jepson. "We haven't done as well as we like on pommel horse yet either and we're working at it, but it's not going to be overnight, especially on high bar, you know. Hopefully we'll see better performance and consistency on high bar."
The Nittany Lions travel to Champaign, Ill. to compete against Illinois on Saturday, Feb. 14.