After finishing third at the Big Ten championship, the Ohio State men's gymnastics team fell short of the top six at the NCAA championships. OSU finished seventh, behind Michigan, with a final team score of 351.800.
"It's just a different feeling finishing in the top six as opposed to even seventh," coach Miles Avery said. "Seventh place for this team though, I think was pretty good. I'm happy with that for this team."
In the meet at Stanford, senior Jimmy Wickham and junior Jake Bateman both took home individual All-American honors.
Wickham's second-place finish on floor exercises and third place on the vault gave him the third and fourth All-American honors of his career.
"With vault it came easy ... Floor is the one that is most special to me just because there's so many talented tumblers in the country and from all teams," Wickham said. "It's definitely an honor to be, you know, second in the country on that event."
Wickham said he started practicing gymnastics in his yard after watching the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
"That's why I had such an affinity for floor and vault because its been like strength events that I can do on my own outside of a gym," Wickham said.
Wickham, a 2004 walk-on, achieved All-American status four times, three times on the vault. Darren Lynch is the only other Buckeye to accomplish a three-peat All-American on the vault.
"I could not have asked for a better way to end it," Wickham said. "I feel like I can leave with no regrets."
He said he hopes to coach gymnastics at the collegiate level or continue his education in exercise science.
Bateman earned his first All-American, finishing sixth in the all-around competition with a final score of 87.7.
Penn State's Casey Sandy took home the individual all-around title.
Bateman will return next year, as he and his teammates began to train since the NCAA meet.
As for an off-season, "it's called an off-season just because we're not competing, but we're here training all year round," Bateman said.
Bateman said he will use the off-season for shoulder surgery, just as many other gymnasts use it for recovery.
Avery said both Bateman and Wickham's honors are "a feather in our cap in terms of the Ohio State program."
He said it was a testament that someone can walk on to the team and achieve success like Wickham as well as achieving continued success like Bateman. Avery also said he is excited for next season.
With the two top recruits in gymnastics, Philip Onorato and Alexy Bilozertchev, signing letters of intent to attend OSU, next season will be very exciting.
"Both of them are tremendously, tremendously talented," Avery said. "They both should challenge as freshmen for NCAA all-around title. That's how good these guys are."
Patrick Reilly can be reached at reilly.60@osu.edu.
Be the first to comment on this story