Feb. 9, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -
By Anita Nham, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The No. 3 Penn State men's gymnastics team's season remains undefeated with a 443.600-431.400 win over No.7 Ohio State Friday evening at Rec Hall.
"We started out really strong and did a really solid job, but fell a little short in the last event," said head coach Randy Jepson. "We had a little bit of a mental lapse, so that was unfortunate, but it was a strong showing overall. I was pleased."
The Nittany Lions won the first five events and earned six individual titles. Sophomore Christian McSwain placed first in the floor exercise event, senior Craig Hernandez finished first on pommel horse, and senior Matthew Felleman came in first on high bar.
Junior Trevor Howard took home three individual titles in still rings, parallel bars, and all-around.
"It's exciting," said Howard. "I've been struggling in the gym doing my sets, but being able to come out and do a set [on still rings] like that even when I'm tried from not doing all-around all the time, it's good to go out there and hit a nice set."
With a final score of 443.600, the Blue and White notched the sixth-best team score in program history. However, even with this positive outcome, Penn State still plans to improve for their meet against Illinois next Friday.
"Well, we're going to have to be better to beat Illinois," said coach Jepson. "They're a very good team and one of the things we can focus on is the certainly the finishing could be better in the last couple of events, so we can do a better job there and pommel horse wasn't particularly good today, so hopefully next week, [the team's] games up."
Howard echoed coach Jepson's statement about refining the routines on pommel horse.
"I definitely need to improve on pommel horse, that's always been a weak point for me," said Howard. "It was good. It built my confidence hitting it tonight, but I still need to get the nerves under control and be able to come out and show that I've been training in the gym."
Ohio State and Penn State will meet again in the Big Ten Championships on March 27-28, but this meet is no indication of what the results for the championships will be.
"There's going to be a lot of change between now and Big Ten," said coach Jepson. "A lot of teams are looking healthier, getting better, that's a lot of season to be competed, so by no means are we set in stone in anything. We got a job to work."