Michigan Men’s Gymnastics Advances to NCAA Finals

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The No. 2-ranked University of Michigan men’s gymnastics team advanced to the NCAA Finals with a solid performance in Session II of the NCAA Championships Qualifier on Friday (April 17) at State Farm Center.

The Maize and Blue finished second in the session with a team score of 324.623, while Stanford (327.992) and Illinois (319.658) rounded out the top three. The trio will compete against No. 4 Nebraska, No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 5 Ohio State, all advancing out of Session I.

How it Happened Parallel Bars Carson Eshleman (13.433) and Pierce Wolfgang (13.266) got the Wolverines off to a solid start to the rotation before a pair of sticks from Solen Chiodi (13.366) and Fred Richard (14.600). Despite Richard’s season-high and session-leading score, Michigan was in second behind Stanford after the first rotation.

High Bar Wolfgang posted another solid score of 13.666 to open the rotation, while Landen Blixt added a stick and 13.533 to the team score. Eshleman posted a 14.166, the highest score of the session, and Richard anchored with a 13.766. A team-high high bar score of 55.131 was not enough to push Michigan into first and the Wolverines remained in second.

Floor Exercise Jake Islam opened the third rotation with a solid 13.500 and Eli Osuna kept the momentum going with a 13.433 to come just 0.067 points shy of his career high.

Michigan’s Fred Richard and Carson Eshleman topped the leaderboard on the parallel bars (14.600) and horizontal bar (14.166), respectively, while teammates Akshay Puri and Landen Blixt paced the still rings (14.166) and floor exercise (14.066) competitions.