While the majority of Ohio State students spent last Friday and Saturday recovering from their hectic spring break trips, the OSU men's and women's gymnastics teams finished the Big Ten season at the Big Ten Championship Meet. The No. 1 men's team won their competition in Ann Arbor, Mich., with a score of 225.350, while the women's team finished seventh in Iowa City, Iowa, with a score of 192.875.
For the men this was their first title since 2002 and was redemption against No. 3 Illinois after an earlier season loss and tie to the Fighting Illini. Illinois came in second with a score of 224.125 and host No. 5 Michigan came in third with 222.775 points.
"I asked (the team) to win and they did that," coach Miles Avery said. "But we made some mistakes."
OSU got off to a very rough start Friday on its first event of the competition, the pommel horse. Senior co-captain Randy Monahan and sophomore Willie Ito both struggled on the event, as did freshman Mike Marino, and OSU limped out to a 36.750 score for fourth place.
The Buckeyes rebounded on the rings with solid performances from Monahan and senior co-captain Cody Trobaugh. Monahan's 9.700 was good enough for a second-place tie and Trobaugh's 9.650 tied for fourth.
OSU finished the meet by winning the final three team events - parallel bars, high bar and floor exercise.
"No one on the team hung their head (after the pommel horse)," Ito said. "This team is good enough to never be out of the competition."
Perhaps the team's only disappointment on Friday night was Monahan's fourth-place finish in the all-around competition. After winning the all-around the past two years, he was vying to be the first three-time winner in Big Ten history. Michigan junior Justin Laury placed first in the competition with a score of 56.200.
"I'm a little disappointed," Monahan said. "I have not been able to train enough this season with my sore elbow."
Monahan's elbow has plagued him throughout the year and prevented him from competing in the all-around until last weekend.
In the individual competition on Saturday Monahan put Friday's disappointment behind him to place first on rings, second on high bar, and fourth on floor exercise.
Bucher won the individual parallel bar title after winning the event in the team competition on Friday. In Saturday's last event, OSU swept the top three spots on the high bar competition. Junior Ronnie Ferris won with a score of 9.862, Monahan was second at 9.850, and Ito placed third with a 9.725.
Ito was the first of the three Buckeye competitors to compete and was in first place before Monahan topped his score, and dropped to third after Ferris topped both of his teammates. Ito said the three of them have a pretty good in-team rivalry on the high bar.
Saturday Avery was named the 2005 Big Ten Coach of the Year. This is the third such award for Avery after winning the award in 2001 and 2002.
On the women's side OSU's struggles on the uneven bars doomed the team's chances for a higher finish. OSU's score of 47.525 on the event was the worst team score by 0.475 points. The Buckeyes had three poor individual performances responsible for the low team score.
Coach Carey Fagan said the scoring on the uneven bars was tight all night and if the team had performed on the event like they have all season the team would have finished as high as fourth overall in the meet.
Michigan won the meet for the seventh-consecutive year with a score of 196.250, followed by Penn State and Minnesota.
OSU senior Liz Meaney, a first team All-Big Ten selection this season, led the young Buckeyes, whose roster includes eight freshman, like she has all season with a fourth-place finish on the balance beam and an eight-place finish on the floor exercise.
Yet despite her high finish on the beam neither Meaney nor Fagan said they believe Meaney was scored accurately on the event. Both said they felt one judge drastically underscored Meaney compared to the other judges, which dropped her overall score.
Freshman Karley Walek, who was named second team All-Big Ten this season, finished in 12th place on the vault with a score of 9.800. Fellow freshman Maalika Moore-Thomas placed 10th in the all-around with a score of 38.625.
The season is over for the women's team, but Meaney, Walek and junior Kaylin Schlecht qualified for the NCAA Regional meet on April 9. Meaney will compete in the balance beam, Walek in the all-around, and Schlect in the uneven bars. Gymnasts have to win their event at the regional meet to move on to the NCAA Championships in late April as an individual.
The men's team will compete in the NCAA Championships in West Point, N.Y., on April 7-9 with the No. 1 national ranking. So far this season the team has set the record for the highest home and away score in the NCAA since the scoring system changed in 2000.
"I've been telling my guys we do not need to be concerned with any other teams (at NCAAs)," Avery said. "We just have to do what we normally do and we will come back (to Columbus) with a national title."
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