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OU Gymnastics: Oklahoma Captures Impressive Road Win at Simpson

The Sooners landed a victory in every event and six different gymnasts won event titles as No. 1-ranked OU cruised to an easy victory.

John E. Hoover

OU Gymnastics: Oklahoma Captures Impressive Road Win at Simpson
OU Gymnastics: Oklahoma Captures Impressive Road Win at Simpson /

By OU Media Relations

INDIANOLA, IA – The Oklahoma men’s gymnastics team won every event and six different gymnasts won event titles as the No. 1 Sooners claimed a 400.600 to 360.950 road victory at No. 14 Simpson College Saturday afternoon at Cowles Fieldhouse.

Redshirt freshman Leo Koike won the vault title with a career- and meet-high 14.900. Sophomore Ignacio Yockers notched a 14.850 to win pommel horse, sophomore Kelton Christiansen won high bar with a 14.200 and senior Zach Nunez won parallel bars with a 13.850. Junior Matt Burgoyne started OU’s floor exercise rotation with a 13.750 and won the event, while sophomore Adriel Perales-Valencia won the still rings title with his 13.450.

The Sooners registered their fourth straight 72-plus on vault, scoring a 72.400, as all five gymnasts hit in the 14s. OU scored 66.700 on floor exercise, 67.700 on pommel horse, 65.750 on still rings, 65.950 on parallel bars and 62.100 on horizontal bar.

“Our vault team was really good, and better than expected, so I was really happy about that,” Oklahoma head coach Mark Williams said. “We gave some guys opportunities to see what they could do. A few of those guys took advantage of that and did a nice job. Ignacio did excellent on pommel horse again and had a really good p-bars set. Zach Nunez kind of stepped up on two events that he hasn’t been doing in vault and p-bars. There were some highlights to have out there. We understood that not having some of our top guys out there that there was going to be some tradeoff in terms of the lineup, but I did expect a better performance than we ended up having.”

Burgoyne started the meet for OU with his 13.750 on floor, freshman Nico Hamilton notched a 13.700 and Koike scored a 13.650. Nunez and Yockers capped Oklahoma’s pommels rotation with their respective 14.000 and 14.850 scores after Christiansen started the event with a 13.400, his second-highest score of the season on pommel horse.

Freshman Max Bereznev led off for OU on still rings, notching a career-high 13.350 in his second career rings routine. Perales-Valencia claimed the event title with his 13.450 in the fourth position in the rotation.

Oklahoma gymnasts claimed the top five spots in the vault standings. Burgoyne started with a 14.150 in his first vault for the Sooners, freshman Tyler Flores followed with a 14.450, Koike stuck a 14.900, and Nunez and Bereznev finished by each scoring 14.450. The 72.400 was OU’s second-highest score on the event this season (second to last week’s 72.850).

Nunez began the parallel bars rotation with his event-winning 13.850 routine, and Yockers matched his career high on p-bars with a 13.650 score. Christiansen hit strong high bar routine for the second straight week, claiming the title with his 14.200.

The Sooners take a break from NCAA team competition next weekend for USA Gymnastics Winter Cup, which will be held Feb. 23-25 in Louisville. Fuzzy Benas, Colin Flores, Jack Freeman, Ignacio Yockers and OU alumnus Yul Moldauer are set to compete at Winter Cup. Oklahoma returns to NCAA action March 2 at Michigan. 

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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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