Three Huskers Advance to NCAA Event Preliminaries

Three members of the Nebraska men's gymnastics team qualified for the individual event preliminaries at the NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championships on Thursday. Competing in the evening qualifying session, junior Martin Fournier joined seniors Grant Clinton and Jason Hardabura, who had qualified in the first session Thursday afternoon. The top three all-around competitors and the top three individual event qualifiers in each session advanced to Friday's competition.

Fournier, sophomore Ryan Sneed and Minnesota's Mitch Griffin all received scores of 8.70 on the parallel bars, but since only three competitors can advance to Friday's preliminaries, a tie breaker determined that Sneed would not advance. Stanford's Paul O'Leary, who scored an 8.775, was the other qualifier.

Fournier, who finished ninth in the all-around with a score of 50.70, also had scores of 8.25 (floor), 8.55 (horizontal bar), 8.35 (pommel horse), 8.05 (rings) and 8.80 (vault). Sneed's mark on the parallel bars was a season high and tied him for 11th-place, while he also scored an 8.90 on vault to tie for 25th.

In the afternoon session, Hardabura, the 1999 NCAA all-around champion, earned the third highest score in the all-around posting a 52.575.

Hardabura received three 9.0s in the competition, including a season-high 9.00 on the floor exercise, en route to his second-highest score of the season. Hardabura's 9.0 on pommel horse tied his season high, while he also received a 9.00 on vault, marking the sixth time this season he has scored at least a 9.0 on the event. Hardabura, who hails from Oakville, Ontario, posted an 8.55 on the horizontal bar, an 8.525 on the parallel bars and an 8.50 on rings.

Meanwhile, Clinton qualified on both events in which he competed, claiming the final spots on each. The Katy, Texas, native posted scores of 9.0 on rings, and 8.80 on parallel bars.

Several other Huskers competed, but did not advance past the qualifying stage. Freshman Steven Friedman finished eighth in the all-around with a score of 51.40, just 0.05 shy of his career high. Friedman, who hails from Johannesburg, South Africa, just missed qualifying for Friday's competition on the parallel bars as his score of 8.75, was .05 off the qualifying total. Friedman posted career highs on three events, including the parallel bars (8.75) and pommel horse (8.30). He also tied his career high on vault with a score of 8.95, and posted scores of 8.65 (floor), 8.45 (rings) and 8.30 (horizontal bar).

Freshman Josh Rasile (Phoenix, Ariz.) tied for 17th on vault with a score of 9.0 and finished tied for 18th on floor (8.85). Junior Jeff Kelly competed on still rings and finished tied for 23rd with a score of 8.40.

Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State will join Oklahoma, California and Penn State for the team finals Friday. Friday's individual event preliminaries and team finals will begin at 6 p.m.