Coming into the dual men’s gymnastics meet Saturday night, no one would have predicted the final result, especially after the first event.
No. 10 Iowa started out on the floor, and when two of the five competitors fell, things were looking like they’d be a repeat of the weekend before. The Hawkeyes, however, picked themselves up and left those two under-13 scores in the dust with the only other three scores as low as that.
The Hawkeyes then moved onto the pommel horse, where all five competitors crushed their performances. The team score for this event ended up being 67.250 – nearly 3 points higher than No. 2 Penn State’s score and at least 10 points ahead of No. 14 Arizona State’s.
The third rotation, rings, also became a highlight for the Hawkeyes. Junior Jake Brodarzon led the way with a score of 14.150, with senior Mark Springett only a 0.1 points behind.
Meanwhile, Penn State had been keeping steady scores generally in the 13’s but plagued by numerous 12’s. The Nittany Lions recorded only one score in the 14’s by the time Iowa had recorded three.
Arizona State, however, was another story. Within those first three rotations, they recorded no scores in the 14’s. In fact, on pommel horse, only one of the Sun Devils recorded a score that was even in the 12’s. The entire team, throughout their routines, battled falls left, right, and all down.
The next three rotations proved to be just as bright for the Hawkeyes – and just as not for the Nittany Lions and the Sun Devils.
On the vault, senior Dylan Ellsworth posted a stunning 14.800, easily the highest individual score for the entire meet. The rest of the vault team posted notably high scores, making for a team event score of 69.350.
Ellsworth again led the way on the parallel bars with a 14.200, and senior Austin Hodges followed that with his second score of 14.050 for the night.
The high bar, the bane of almost any team, was a point of clear dominance for the Hawkeyes. After leadoff sophomore Andrew Herrador posted his event title-winning score of 13.600, the rest of team got the job done so that the team score for that event was more than three points ahead of Arizona State’s team score, and exactly 5 points ahead of Penn State’s.