Stanford takes lead into finals
MINNEAPOLIS — Oklahoma’s Steven Legendre posted the highest score of the day on the vault and the top six seeds finished in order in the NCAA men’s gymnastics championships on Thursday.
Top-seeded Stanford narrowly posted the highest score in the qualifying round with 361.100 overall points, with Oklahoma, Michigan, Illinois, California and Ohio State also qualifying for Friday night’s final.
Legendre stuck a clean landing and scored a 16.35 on the vault, 0.05 points short of his championship score from last year.
Failing to advance were Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois-Chicago, Penn State, Nebraska and Navy.
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The hometown Gophers made things interesting at the end of the evening session, however, going into the final rotation trailing Ohio State by 1.350 points. In front of a sparse but loud crowd, they scored just 55.650 points on the parallel bars, which included a gymnast falling off of the bars, and missed the championship round even with their second-highest scoring total of the season.
