Jan. 21, 2017
By Tom Shively, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa -- In front of a large crowd at Rec Hall, the Penn State men's gymnastics team put on a show, taking down Army West Point for the team's second overall victory in as many meets. Senior captain Dominic DiFulvio led the charge, taking two individual titles on rings and vault as well as achieving the highest all-around score among the two teams.
Just as any great athlete, DiFulvio still looked for things to improve even after his success on Saturday.
"I definitely liked the way that I just kept my head up," DiFulvio said. "Floor didn't exactly go the way I planned and neither did pommel horse, but like I said, I needed to buckle down and get the rest of this done. I was proud about that."
Head coach Randy Jepson had nothing but praise for DiFulvio, whose gutsy upperclassman effort was one of the main reasons why the Nittany Lions got the win.
"It's the difference between a freshman and a senior," Jepson said. "Really steady, confident and experienced. Even though Dom didn't feel that great, he put in a great meet and did his job, so I was pleased with him."
The atmosphere played a huge part in the success of the team, as one of the biggest crowds in recent memory came out to support the Nittany Lions. The volume of the crowd was aided in large part by the fact that the meet was a double dual, also including the Penn State women's team and its matchup against Maryland.
"This was amazing, I don't think we've ever had as many people here before," DiFulvio said. "It was pretty awesome to be home and have it be that loud in there. I thought it was great for our guys because it's normally not loud in the dual meets. But when we get to Big Tens and NCAAs, it gets really loud so I want them to get that type of experience."
"It's nice to compete in front of the home fans," Jepson said. "[The Army coach] agreed to change our warmup time up so we could finish more on time with our women's team and it worked pretty well. I think from a fan's standpoint; it was a better show than we've done in some years."
The Nittany Lions were dominant on parallel bars as well, tallying the top six scores, ahead of every single competitor for Army.
"It's definitely one of our strong areas," DiFulvio said. "We have a lot of guys that competed last year that are back here now. Also, Wyatt [Tyndall] was a bright point today. He hasn't really shown us that in practice, so it was awesome to see that today. I was really proud of him. I'm hoping that he can keep that up and continue that during practice."
"It was okay, it's not nearly what we can do," Jepson said. "We may have placed well, but it's not about placing. It's about performance, and our performances need to improve. Second meet out, we've still got a lot of work to do, but I'm hoping the jitters can subside as we go a couple more meets into the season. It's going to get more difficult when we go into Big Ten season: more tough teams."
Favian Valdez also had a strong day as well for the Nittany Lions, taking home the top overall score in pommel horse a week after finishing second in that event at the West Point Open.
"Favian is right there behind [DiFulvio], he just needs a little more fine-tuning and to make some changes in training and translate that to what he does in competition."
The Nittany Lions' next meet is at Springfield College in Massachusetts on Jan. 29. They return home to take on Ohio State Feb. 11 in another double dual with the women's team.