How can OU men's gymnastics take down Stanford? Start with big scores
Stanford has become a bully on the college men’s gymnastics playground.
Winners of the last three NCAA team titles, the Cardinal has distanced itself from the pack with each championship. The margin of victory was less than a point the first time, but then it grew to almost three, then was more than nine points last year.
The team Stanford has bested for each of those three titles?
The second-ranked Sooners get another shot at the top-ranked Cardinal in Norman at 6 p.m. Saturday at McCasland Field House. William and Mary will be in the three-team competition, too, but OU-Stanford will be the main event.
Big scores will be crucial for the Sooners if they want to keep pace with the Cardinal, and a week ago, Zach Nunez put up some big ones in a dual against Simpson College. The junior posted the nation’s second-highest all-around score this season.
Nunez talked about that and Stanford with The Oklahoman.
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Mark Williams, your coach, called your all-around performance the biggest surprise of last weekend. It was the first time you did the all-around this season. What went into getting you to the point you were able to do all six events?
“I had shoulder surgery, so I didn’t really have a lot of new skills to show off. But I’ve just been relying on my training and just doing what I do in the gym, trying not to let my thoughts get in the way of what I had to do. Because it’s a mental thing, not just physical. Just trying to be calm. Trust myself in my gymnastics.”
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The numbers would say you did that. What did you feel like was the key to popping just a big all-around score?
“It was really just me being calm. I couldn’t let myself get too amped up, or if I was too nervous, I’d be changing too many things. Stay calm. Just relax.”
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You being a junior now, does that sort of thing come with experience?
“I think so. I got a lot of help from a lot of upperclassmen. … I’ve been saying the word, ‘Calm.’ that’s something that Vitaliy (Guimaraes) usually says. He says, ‘Stay cool, calm, collected and confident.’ And I like to stick by those words. It helps a lot.”
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Coming off that performance, now you have Stanford coming to town. What’s the mentality knowing it has become such a heavyweight in the sport?
“To be honest, we try not to focus on who we’re going against, regardless of who it is. … We just try to see how we can improve on what we did the weekend before, how we can improve our own scores.”
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Gymnastics isn’t a sport where you directly compete against your opponent. Like, you can’t play defense against them or tackle someone doing the floor exercise. But do you feel like there are ways to put pressure on teams?
“I think we can. Like I said before, there’s a mental aspect. So if we’re keeping up with them with scores, they’re gonna be like, ‘Oh, yeah, they’re better than we thought.’”
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Can that boost you guys, too?
“I think so. It’s like a checkpoint. Our first meet, we also were with Stanford. So, it’s like checkpoints, see how far our team has improved.”
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Do you feel like the team has improved?
“Yeah, especially after last week. It gave us a good pat on the back.”
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU gymnastics: Sooners face checkpoint against top-ranked Stanford
