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Gymnastics: Oklahoma Sweeps Conference Awards

Fuzzy Benas, Ignacio Yockers and Colin Flores took home this week's MPSF honors for the No. 1-ranked Sooners, who have a big meet coming up this weekend.

John E. Hoover

Gymnastics: Oklahoma Sweeps Conference Awards
Gymnastics: Oklahoma Sweeps Conference Awards /

After a dominating performance last week that vaulted the Sooners to No. 1 in the national rankings, Oklahoma swept this week’s weekly conference awards, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation announced Tuesday.

OU redshirt sophomore Fuzzy Benas was named MPSF Gymnast of the Week, sophomore Ignacio Yockers was named Specialist of the Week and Colin Flores was named Freshman of the Week.

Benas, Yockers and Flores led the Sooners to a 420.350 score and a victory in the Rocky Mountain Open over Nebraska and Air Force on Saturday night. The team score stands as the best nationally this season by nearly seven points.

Benas registered the highest all-around score nationally this season when he posted an 85.200 to win the individual all-around title at the Rocky Mountain Open. He won the parallel bars event title with a career-high 14.800, which stands as the second-highest score on bars this season. He also tied for the highest score of the meet on vault (14.550), and finished among the top four in five of the six individual events at the Open. He placed third on floor exercise (14.100), fourth on pommel horse (career-high 14.150), fourth on rings (season-best 13.700) and posted a season-high 13.900 on the high bar. This was the first all-around competition since 2022 for the Richmond, TX, product, who missed the 2023 season due to injury.

Yockers, from Tulsa, won the pommel horse title with a 14.950 and notched a career-high 13.650 on parallel bars at the Rocky Mountain Open on Saturday night. His 14.950 on pommel horse stands as the second-highest horse score recorded nationally this season, and the highest by an MPSF gymnast.

Flores placed third in the all-around at the Rocky Mountain Open Saturday night with an 80.800 score. It was his first collegiate all-around competition and the first time he competed more than three events in a meet. The Mountain House, CA, product tied for third on parallel bars with his career-high 14.200 and notched a career-high 13.600 on floor exercise. Flores posted a 13.100 on pommel horse, 13.350 on high bar and 12.900 on rings in his first collegiate competition on those three events, and also notched a 13.600 on vault.

With their top-three placement in the all-around at the Rocky Mountain Open, Benas and Flores automatically qualify to Winter Cup, which will be held Feb. 23-25 in Louisville.

OU has now won four MPSF weekly awards this season. Junior Emre Dodanli was named Specialist of the Week on Jan. 16.

No. 1 Oklahoma travels to Champaign, IL, this weekend to face No. 5 Illinois on Sunday. The meet is set for 4 p.m. and will be televised on Big Ten Network.

OU Media Relations contributed to this report.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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