Things appeared to “snowball” out of control for the No. 1 Ohio State men’s gymnastics team this weekend.

The Buckeyes followed a disappointing Friday showing at St. John Arena with an expected low score at Nebraska Sunday.

Hosting No. 2 California and No. 4 Oklahoma, OSU coach Miles Avery said he hoped for a high score out of his team’s top gymnasts. What he got was a third-place score of 217.40 Friday. While resting the top men, Avery settled for another loss when the team traveled to No. 8 Nebraska Sunday.

“I am very disappointed that I didn’t have these guys ready to compete with two of the best teams in the country,” Avery said Friday night. “We were already prepared to not have a full team in (the Nebraska match) because the guys should have had a lot of injuries (Friday), which they did not.”

OSU did not use much of Randy Monahan, Cody Trobaugh, Willie Ito or Jamey Houle Sunday.

Troubles started early for the Buckeyes Friday. They were sitting in first place after the first rotation but quickly fell to third when they took on the pommel horse.

Freshman Willie Ito did not look confident from the moment he started his routine. As he was trying to gain momentum, Ito tumbled onto his back on the top of the pommel horse. He struggled to get his routine back in motion and only scored an 8.15.

Following Ito was Monahan, who won his fifth all-around competition Friday. Monahan struggled and came off the pommel horse early before finishing his routine.

Ronald Ferris was the only Buckeye to score over a 9.0 in the event, placing first with a 9.5.

“It seemed like when we got a little bit of pressure on us – like when certain guys missed – it just snowballed from there,” Monahan said. “We’ve got to focus on when someone messes up (saying) ‘Hey, forget about it, move on and do your own gymnastics.'”

Avery agreed this was a problem.

“We talk a lot about when one guy does not do well, then the next guys steps in and does a great job,” Avery said. “None of that happened today. It just snowballed in terms of having the worst meet in a lot of years that I can remember at Ohio State.”

Oklahoma finished first in the tri-meet with a score of 219.60, extending its win streak to 45. During the entire competition, the Sooners vocalized their support for one another, as they cheered for a fellow gymnast whether he scored high or low.

The worst event for OSU was the parallel bars Friday. Trobaugh grabbed the lowest score in any event by any gymnast with a 6.0 as he fell off his routine twice and finished on his rear instead of his feet. The highest score by a Buckeye was an 8.8 by Kerry Alderly, who followed Friday’s performance with a first-place finish in the parallel bars Sunday.

“We had been marking this date on the calendar for a while. To come out and not have a strong performance is kind of frustrating,” Monahan said Friday. “I think we felt a little bit of stress because we had put so much pressure on this meet, but we have to figure out how to handle that by the end of the season.”

In the final home meet of the season, the Buckeyes will face No. 5 Penn State at 7 p.m. Saturday.