The Minnesota men’s gymnastics team opened its season by placing third in the Windy City Invitational after placing fifth last season.
The Gophers finished with 424.500 points Sunday afternoon, behind Illinois and Ohio State who scored 425.950 and 425.700 points, respectively.
Sophomore Tristan Duran finished in third place in the all-around competition for the Gophers with 85.250 points. His best event came on the horizontal bars, which he won with a score of 15.400.
Junior Zach Liebler also finished as the top competitor on the floor exercise by a large margin with a score of 15.650. He struggled on the high bar, though, placing 34th.
“I could not have done my floor routine better; I stuck every pass and set a career high of a 15.650,” Liebler said. “High bar was an area where I fell apart today. I need to work on my confidence and trust in my ability to hit my set. High bar has been an event that has gone well in training, so I just need to transfer that to the competition floor.”
The Gophers were in first place after two rotations with a combined 144.350 points.
Minnesota fell to second place after the parallel bars but still trailed Indiana by under a point. The Gophers retook the lead in the fourth rotation and held onto it heading into the team’s final event.
Minnesota only scored 68.600 points on the pommel horse and fell to third place at the event.
Women’s team defeats Maryland
Senior Lindsay Mable won the all-around title, as the women’s gymnastics team was able to defeat No. 25 Maryland on Saturday.
The No. 23 Gophers outscored the Terrapins 195.425-193.150 for their second victory of the year.
“I’m really pleased with where we are at right now. We had great hit percentages on every event today, and we improved our team score by over seven-tenths from last weekend,” head coach Jenny Hansen said. ”It’s exactly the kind of momentum we want to be building this time of the year.”
Mable scored 39.400 points in the all-around, winning three of the four events and tying with senior Hanna Nordquist for the victory in the fourth.
Mable and Nordquist shared the beam title, while junior Bailie Holst took second on the uneven bars, and sophomore Ciara Gardner took second on the floor.
“Today was a great stepping stone for this season. We hit the majority of routines today, which is a major plus for this early in the season,” Mable said. “I think what is even better is that we have all looked at our routines from tonight and know the improvements we can make to increase our team score next weekend.”
The Gophers also won as a team on each event, never trailing the Terrapins despite the close final score.
Minnesota started out by scoring 48.625 points on the vault and followed with 48.850 points on the beam. The Gophers scored 48.850 points on the uneven bars before closing with 49.100 points on the floor.
