NORMAN, Okla. — Senior Jonathan Horton led the No. 2 Oklahoma men’s gymnastics team to its eighth national title with an upset win over top-ranked Stanford on Friday night in Palo Alto, Calif. The victory was decided on the last routine of the last event, when Horton’s score on still rings shot the Sooners past the host Cardinal.
In Saturday’s individual finals, OU picked up half the titles: Horton won the national title on rings and freshman Steven Legendre powered his way to victory on floor exercise and vault.
The Sooners came into Friday’s team finals as the underdog to Stanford, which outscored OU by nearly 6 points in Thursday’s qualification.
OU started off the finals on the right foot on vault, however, bringing in 64.150, which would be the highest event total of the night from any team. The Sooners proved why they were ranked No. 1 in the event during the season, and Legendre led the way with a career-high 16.400.
OU stayed in the lead after parallel bars and high bar, where they earned the second-best event totals of the night behind Cal and Stanford, respectively.
The floor exercise also was a success for the Sooners as they recorded a program-high score of 62.600. Legendre posted another career high with a 16.000, and sophomore Reed Pitts (15.400), junior Russ Czeschin (15.450) and Horton (15.750) all set or matched career highs for the event.
After a bye rotation, the Sooners went into their weakest event of the season, the pommel horse, where they posted a score of 56.200. Junior Jason Laughton posted the team’s highest score of 14.300. Horton, in contention for the all-around title, scored a 13.560.
Going into the final rotation, OU still held the lead over Stanford, 301.500 to 299.000. With Stanford on vault, typically the highest-scoring event for each team, the Sooners knew they needed strong performances on rings to take the championship.
Sophomore Ian Jackson (14.900) and junior Jake Messina (15.300) both had solid showings on the rings before the two senior co-captains came up to compete. Senior co-captain Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons, who had a rough day going into the rings, came through in the clutch with a score of 15.400 to set up Horton for a national title-winning performance. Horton, who needed a 15.700, came through for his team with a career-high 16.100, to give OU its third national title in four years.
“I tried to get myself psyched up enough to where I’d be strong enough to get through a routine like that,” said Horton, who finished second in the all-around (90.950) behind Penn State’s Casey Sandy (91.350). “It was a tough routine and I knew I needed to stick my landing, and I was just thinking about all the guys watching and how bad they all wanted it.”
“I was thrilled,” said coach Mark Williams. “We stepped up tremendously from the preliminary round. We were almost six points behind Stanford, so it was definitely going to be a fight for us to somehow find that many points to be competitive with them. We had solid performances and we actually had fantastic performances once we got through the pommel horse, and then I knew we had a chance. After Stanford’s last man had already gone I didn’t know exactly how much we needed but I knew Horton had to come up with a huge score for us to win.”
The Sooners could not have scripted a better ending, with solid performances from the entire team and clutch performances from the two team captains.
“Going out as national champions as seniors for Taqiy and me is an incredible thing,” Horton said. “I think it’s how every senior wants to leave their college career. This one definitely felt like the most exciting and most special one out of all of them. I’m just really proud of the team, I’m proud of Taqiy and the way he hung in there throughout the whole meet.”
The six Sooners in Saturday’s event finals earned a total of 11 All-American honors. Horton took the rings title with a career-high 16.125 — .025 points higher than the previous night.
Legendre also earned a new career-high score on floor exercise, where he took the title with a 16.100. He added the vault title to his haul to walk away the most successful freshman of the championships.
This eighth national title puts the men’s gymnastics program alone at the top of the list for the most championships in OU history. The team previously had been tied with football for seven. OU is now tied for third with Nebraska on the all-time list of NCAA men’s gymnastics championships.
Horton, Legendre and others won’t get much rest as they prepare for the U.S. Championships May 24 through 26 in Houston, Texas, and the U.S. Olympic Trials June 19 through 22 in Philadelphia.
The NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Team and All-Around Finals will be aired on ESPN2 at 2 p.m. Thursday.