Husker Returners Prevail for Intrasquad Win

Lincoln ? After claiming the lead over the NU newcomers following day one of the Nebraska men's gymnastics' annual intrasquad meet, the Husker returners closed the door on Friday, 204.75-199.75. The mark is nearly eight points higher than Nebraska scored as a team to open the 2006 regular season, which testifies to the Huskers’ incredible offseason strides.<?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"?>

 

“Considering that both the returners and the newcomers scored higher than we did at the Rocky Mountain Open last year, I’d say we had a pretty good intrasquad meet,” senior Jason Wassung said. “And our coaches judge us really hard in these kinds of events so I know that we’re on pace to do really well.”

 

<?xml:namespace prefix="st1" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"?>Nebraska battled through the second half of Olympic rotation on Friday, competing on the vault, parallel bars and high bar.

 

Despite having a clear advantage on the vault, an event where the NU returners have ranked among the top three vaulting squads in the nation for the last two seasons, it was the Husker newcomers who earned the highest marks on the event. Freshmen Josh Rusler and John Robinson shared the top score in vault, each with a 9.0, while freshman Tony Maras tied senior Jason Wassung for second with a score of 8.90.

 

One of the reasons for the shift is the change in scoring that hit the vault this season, devaluing many of the Husker letterwinners’ previous routines.

 

“We had some really good stuff on vault,” assistant coach Chuck Chmelka said. “We had two guys perform double-fronts, which have a 9.60 start vault and that’s impressive. But we still have to work through some of the scoring changes, because while some of our guys started at a 9.60 last season, they’re now starting at a 9.20 and are going to have to figure out how to get past that.”

 

Nebraska’s returners came back strong on the parallel bars led by an outstanding performance by sophomore T.J. Schmidt, NU’s top scorer on the event in 2006. After setting career-high marks on both the pommel horse and still rings in day one of the intrasquad, Schmidt came in to the parallel bars and bested his previous high score of 9.10 with a 9.20 for first in the event.

 

The intrasquad closed on the high bar, with both the returners and the newcomers struggling to catch releases. In fact, some of Nebraska’s highest scores came off of routines that did not feature a single release skill, including the winning mark of 8.65 from NU junior all-arounder Stephen T?trault.

 

“We were a little disappointed on high bar because we usually catch our releases,” Chmelka said. “But the guys were missing because they were going too hard, instead of not hard enough, so I guess we can’t be too upset about that.”

 

Using the intrasquad as a benchmark for comparison, Nebraska now has just over a month to put the final touches on its routines before it kicks off the 2007 regular season at the Rocky Mountain Open on Jan. 12-13 in Colorado Springs, Colo.

 

“We definitely know a lot more now than we did a few days ago in terms of where we are as a team,” Chmelka said. “We can see that the talent is there. Now we just need to hit our routines and learn how to handle pressure.”