Men’s Gymnastics Preview vs. Nebraska
No. 4 Penn State gets set to open up conference play this weekend against the No. 3 Nebraska Cornhuskers in Rec Hall for a big top-five matchup.
The blue and white head into the meet with a 1-0 record in the young season with the win coming earlier in January against Army.
Penn State had one of its best openers in program history scoring a staggering 402.900 points which defeated Army by over 20 points.
It was the Nittany Lions' highest-scoring opener since 2016 where they scored 424.450 points against Army, Penn State would go on to finish fifth in that season's NCAA Championship.
Circling back to this season, several Nittany Lions managed to pick up career highs which included junior Matt Cormier on still rings, vault and high bar.
Senior Nate Warren also picked up a career-high on the high bar at 14.200.
Since that meet, the Nittany Lions came out on top in the West Point Open and came in second in the Navy Open on Saturday.
Penn State scored 395.450 points in the Navy Open but did receive an impressive individual performance from junior Michael Jaroh who finished with 80.950 points on his own.
That was made possible with an overall victory in the rings event and a second-place finish on parallel bars.
Now looking at the Nittany Lions opponent this weekend, the Nebraska Cornhuskers do not have any wins or losses yet on the season but have taken part in two open events to open up their campaign.
That started out with the West Point Open, which Penn State was also involved in, as the Cornhuskers ended the event in second place.
Finishing eight points behind the first-place Nittany Lions, Nebraska came away with three event titles.
Senior Donte McKinney put up a career-high 13.95 score on high bars for a title, senior Cooper Giles nabbed a 14.10 score on pommel horse to earn the event title and junior Taylor Christopulos posted a 14.70 on the vault for the final event title.
The Cornhuskers took part in another open meet the following weekend: the Rocky Mountain Open hosted six teams which saw Nebraska battle back to earn a third-place finish.
Christopulos was the highlight of the open for the Cornhuskers as he finished in third all-around with a career-high 81.800 points.
Nebraska finished the event with 405.300 points, six points behind second-place Oklahoma and 15 points behind No. 1 Stanford who won the open.
This will be the first conference matchup for either side and will be one of only two times the Nittany Lions battle at Rec Hall until a potential NCAA Championship appearance.
Nebraska has won the prior two matchups against the Nittany Lions winning by a combined score of just 10 points.
Penn State’s last victory over the Cornhuskers came back in the 2020-21 season.
Logan Bourandas is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email lxb5412@psu.edu.
